FAST FACTS
- The Homethrive Medication Feature can help you keep track of your medications, and share them with others in your care circle.
- The Homethrive Smart Journal is a good way to keep tabs on how you’re feeling at each stage of your caregiving journey.
- Delegate tasks to family members to reduce your workload and avoid burnout.
- For assistance with researching local support, you can connect with your Homethrive Care Guide.
If you’re a caregiver, you’re probably familiar with some of the most common challenges of the role, including long hours, feeling alone, stress, and contributing to your loved one’s financial needs. Caregiving can quickly become overwhelming, especially when you have taken on the bulk of the responsibilities yourself.
Caregiver Planning
With the new year comes a time to reflect and reevaluate what it means to be a caregiver. To help paint a clearer picture of what’s to come (and what you need in order to thrive yourself), we’ve outlined a Caregiver Plan that you can use to get started and organize what you have already started.
Find the PDF and the breakdown below.
Evaluate
As a first step, evaluate how this last year of caregiving went. What were the most stressful tasks on your plate? What were the most time-consuming tasks?
Once you have your list ready, map out your upcoming goals. Focus on solutions or support for your most time-consuming or anxiety-inducing tasks. There are services that can help deliver groceries, provide transportation, or even help alleviate financial burden for certain cases.
For assistance with researching local support, you can connect with your Homethrive Care Guide. Care Guides are credentialed Social Work professionals who can help you create and execute a caregiving plan that reduces the work and worry of caregiving.
Organize
Once you’ve evaluated your caregiving challenges and goals, it’s time to get organized. Make sure you have all of the following in an easily accessible area, and that those in your care circle also have access.
- Emergency contacts
- Hospital/medical contacts
- Attorney information and legal documents
- Medication lists
- Medical history
Keep important paperwork, business cards, and contact information in an easy-to-find location. If the person that you are caregiving for has not yet looked into Advance Directives or made important decisions regarding their own healthcare for the future, make sure to add these to your goals for this year.
Delegate
Every family is different, and not everyone can or will dedicate their time to caregiving. However, just because you may be the primary caregiver does not mean that there aren’t ways that others can help.
What resources does everyone have that they are willing to contribute? Can someone organize regular check-ins for family members? Is someone available to drive the care recipient to appointments or to get groceries? If someone is investing time each week into caregiving, can another person take on some of the financial responsibility?
Organizing a family meeting to discuss sharing the load may help kickstart your goals and allow you to reclaim some of your time and energy. Even if you do not have family members available to help, there may be neighbors, partners, or friends of the care recipient who can help.
There are also apps and services that can save you time with pets, grocery shopping, transportation, or caregiving itself.
Thrive
Caregiving obligations often come at the expense of your own mental, emotional, and physical health. That being the case, do not ignore your needs during this time.
Here are some quick changes that may reduce your stress in the new year:
- Installing safety features in your loved one’s home to reduce their fall risk.
- Scheduling a dog walking service.
- Connecting with your Care Guide to help research resources in your area.
The Homethrive Smart Journal is not only a good way to keep tabs on how you’re feeling at each stage of your caregiving journey, but also a way to receive quick solutions to your problems in real time. The Journal gives you a place to privately record your thoughts and receive personalized suggestions and resources as you type.