LTC 310 Week 4 Caregiver Support Programs and Services Example

Supporting the Daughter Who Does Everything: Caregiver Programs a County Aging Agency Offers, What the Evidence Says and Where Support Still Falls Short

[Student Name]

University of Phoenix

LTC/310: Social and Community Related Programs and Services

Week 4 Assignment

[Instructor Name]

[Date]

The county, its agency and its caregivers are composites written for a model paper; the law, national strategy and research findings come from the sources listed.

A 52-year-old daughter who works as a hospital billing supervisor called the county's aging agency on a Monday morning. Her 83-year-old mother, the widow with heart failure described in this course's first paper, had begun to show early dementia, waking at night and forgetting doses. After a night of little sleep, the daughter had drifted across a lane while driving to work. She asked for help, not for her mother but for herself. This paper examines the programs that support caregivers like her and whether they work.

Who Caregivers Are

Families provide most long-term care. A 2025 national survey counted 63 million family caregivers, about a quarter of all adults (AARP & National Alliance for Caregiving, 2025). Many are employed, many care for someone with dementia and many report strain on their health, sleep and finances. Caregivers of people with dementia spend more hours in care and face more difficult behaviors than other caregivers, which is why the daughter's situation changed so quickly once her mother's memory declined.

What Caregivers Need

Caregivers' needs fall into a few groups: information about the condition and services, skills for tasks such as managing medications or responding to confusion, emotional support, time off and financial and workplace flexibility. The agency's caregiver assessment asks about each, as well as the caregiver's own health, since a caregiver who becomes ill can no longer provide care.

The Federal Caregiver Program

The Older Americans Act of 1965, as amended in 2000, created the National Family Caregiver Support Program under Title III-E. It funds area agencies to offer five types of service to family caregivers of people 60 and older and of people with dementia: information, assistance in gaining access to services, individual counseling, support groups and training, respite and limited supplemental services such as home modifications or incontinence supplies. It also serves older relatives raising children.

The National Strategy

In September 2022, the federal government released a national strategy to support family caregivers, developed by two advisory councils, with nearly 350 federal actions and more than 150 suggested actions for states, communities and employers (Administration for Community Living, 2022). Its goals include public awareness, caregiver involvement in care teams, services and supports, financial and workplace security and better data. It gives a local agency a framework for describing what a complete system would include.

The County's Services

The county agency runs a caregiver program with a single intake line and a caregiver specialist who completes an assessment. From there, caregivers may receive counseling sessions, a six-week caregiver skills course, a monthly support group in English and Spanish, respite vouchers of up to 48 hours a quarter, which families use to pay an aide or adult day center, and supplemental items such as bed alarms and bathroom equipment.

What the Research Shows

A randomized trial enrolled 642 Hispanic or Latino, white and Black caregivers of people with dementia in five cities. The intervention group received 12 home and telephone sessions over six months addressing depression, burden, self-care, social support and the care recipient's behaviors. Caregivers in the intervention group had lower rates of clinical depression than those in the control group, 12.6% compared with 22.7%, and Hispanic or Latino and white caregivers, along with Black spouse caregivers, had greater improvement in quality of life (Belle et al., 2006). Rates of nursing home placement did not differ at six months. Structured help for the caregiver changed how she felt, even if it did not change where her relative lived.

The Daughter's Services

The caregiver specialist found that the mother's nighttime waking was the main problem. The daughter joined the skills course, which covered sleep routines and responding to confusion, and the agency's nurse arranged a medication review with the mother's physician, who changed a diuretic's timing so the mother woke less to use the bathroom. Respite vouchers paid for adult day services two days a week, when the daughter worked. She joined the support group, where another member told her about her employer's family leave policy.

Workplace Supports

The daughter used intermittent unpaid family leave for appointments and asked her manager for a schedule that started later on days after a bad night. Many caregivers have no paid leave, and some leave work entirely, losing income and retirement savings. Workplace flexibility is one of the strategy's goals, and employers that offer it keep experienced staff.

The Grandmother's Services

The 66-year-old grandmother raising two grandchildren, another of the course's residents, receives support through the same program. The agency connected her with a kinship support group that meets while the children attend a supervised activity, a legal aid attorney who helped her obtain guardianship so she could enroll the children in school and consent to medical care and summer camp fees paid from supplemental funds.

Payment for Family Caregivers

Some Medicaid programs let participants hire family members as paid caregivers, and the county's state allows it in its waiver. The daughter could not be paid while also working full time, but a neighbor's son who cares for his mother is paid through that option. Payment helps some families stay afloat, though rates are modest and hours are limited.

Gaps

Demand for respite exceeds funding: the agency has 70 caregivers waiting for vouchers. Evening and overnight respite, which the daughter most needed at first, is scarce. Caregivers who do not identify themselves as caregivers rarely call, so outreach through physicians, employers and faith communities matters.

Recommendations

The agency plans to add caregiver screening questions to hospital discharge calls, train staff at two large employers to refer caregivers, seek a grant for overnight respite and track caregiver depression scores before and after services.

Conclusion

Caregivers carry most long-term care, and programs such as the federal caregiver program offer information, skills, support and time off. Research shows structured programs reduce caregiver depression. The daughter who asked for help for herself, and the grandmother raising two children, show what support can do, while waiting lists for respite show how far it still has to go.

References

AARP & National Alliance for Caregiving. (2025). Caregiving in the US 2025. AARP Public Policy Institute. https://www.aarp.org/pri/topics/ltss/family-caregiving/caregiving-in-the-us-2025/

Administration for Community Living. (2022). 2022 national strategy to support family caregivers. U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. https://acl.gov/programs/support-caregivers/raise-family-caregiving-advisory-council

Belle, S. H., Burgio, L., Burns, R., Coon, D., Czaja, S. J., Gallagher-Thompson, D., Gitlin, L. N., Klinger, J., Koepke, K. M., Lee, C. C., Martindale-Adams, J., Nichols, L., Schulz, R., Stahl, S., Stevens, A., Winter, L., & Zhang, S. (2006). Enhancing the quality of life of dementia caregivers from different ethnic or racial groups: A randomized, controlled trial. Annals of Internal Medicine, 145(10), 727-738. https://doi.org/10.7326/0003-4819-145-10-200611210-00005

Older Americans Act of 1965, 42 U.S.C. § 3001 et seq. (2020).