November is National Family Caregivers Month, a valuable opportunity to take stock of efforts to better support the 1.7 million Michiganders who care for a family member or loved one.
This unpaid workforce provides an invaluable benefit to our state. As Michigan’s population continues to get older on average, finding effective approaches to give caregivers the help, knowledge, and tools they need has never been more important.
Here are two new collaborative solutions — one a recently created resource and the other a developing multi-partner model — that we find exciting:
STATEWIDE CAREGIVER RESOURCE HUB
In 2021, the Health Fund and The John A. Hartford Foundation partnered with the Center for Health Care Strategies (CHCS) to expand the scale, spread, and execution of state strategies to support family caregivers.
CHCS created a Michigan-specific task force to address the gap between the number of family caregivers who could benefit from supportive resources and the number who were able to actually access those services. As part of these efforts, the Health Fund also supported a study with the Center for Health Research and Transformation (CHRT) to assess the needs of Michigan caregivers.
The task force created a whitepaper recommending the creation of a statewide caregiver resource center. A separate 2021 grant to create a Caregiver Resource Center in the Upper Peninsula demonstrated the effectiveness of this approach.
Armed with this information, Area Agencies on Aging — together with input from other stakeholders in aging from across the state — led an advocacy effort seeking movement on these priorities. In July, Governor Gretchen Whitmer and the Michigan Legislature appropriated $5 million to the Area Agencies on Aging Association in the state’s 2024 budget to launch and manage a new Statewide Caregiver Resource Center.
Once up and running, the center will provide coordination across numerous programs and help caregivers find and navigate resources regionally and across the state to support their unique needs.
RESPITE RESOURCES TO CONNECT FAMILIES, PROVIDERS, HEALTH PLAN
Time and again, when surveyed about the resources they most need, family caregivers respond that they need a break to recuperate and attend to other needs. This type of support — known as respite care — is critical to prevent burnout and negative health impacts for caregivers, but it can be difficult to access. To date, our state lacks a cohesive network of respite providers to which family caregivers can turn for help.
To help, our partners at the Ralph C. Wilson, Jr. Foundation have launched the Exhale Family Caregiver Initiative, a dedicated program to expand access to respite services. So far, Exhale projects in Michigan have been focused in Washtenaw County in partnership with the Ann Arbor Area Community Foundation.
Meanwhile, the Health Fund has supported work at the Southeast Michigan Senior Regional Collaborative (SRC) to formulate and convene a Caregiver Coalition, as we shared in a post earlier this year. Expanding access to respite has been a major priority for the coalition as it has entered into the caregiving discussion.
Earlier this month the Health Fund approved two linked grants totaling $500,000 to help align these efforts and develop an innovative, multi-sector model for expanding, coordinating, and funding respite services.
Through a grant to the Philanthropic Initiative, the Health Fund will invest in the Wilson Foundation’s Exhale work to strengthen and expand the network of respite providers in Southeast Michigan, while a second grant will equip the SRC to create a comprehensive Respite Hub that connects caregivers to those providers in their communities.
In an innovative wrinkle, Commonwealth Care Alliance — a new health plan and Medicare Advantage provider in Michigan — has joined as a partner, agreeing to refer its members to the Respite Hub and develop the systems and procedures to pay for respite services through their insurance coverage.
This project is in its early stages and represents just one possible approach to improving access to respite care. If successful, it could provide a roadmap for scaling to other communities in Michigan and beyond. We’re excited to see where this work leads.
PUSHING FOR PROGRESS
These efforts are promising, and many more ideas, partnerships, and innovations are needed to truly address the needs of family caregivers in Michigan. This is underscored in AARP’s recent Long-term Services and Supports Scorecard, which ranked Michigan 28 of 50 states in supporting caregivers and 31 of 50 overall.
That’s why our Healthy Aging program will continue pushing for progress to make our state a national leader in caring for older adults and their caregivers.