Family Caregiving
Developing innovative responses to support family members caring for older adults.
Recognizing the vitally important role family caregivers play in our society, Archstone Foundation has supported over 113 grants totaling more than $11 million to address issues of family caregiving. And for over 20 years, the Foundation has supported family caregiving by funding policy and program development, respite services, training, and counseling programs.
In 2014, the Foundation funded the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine's (NASEM) study to address the state of family caregiving and identify future needs. The resulting report, Families Caring for an Aging America, (2016) suggests policies involving and supporting family caregivers can improve the delivery of services to older adults with chronic disease, disabilities, cognitive impairment, and other frailties.
The NASEM report recognizes that Adult Day Services (ADS) benefit both family caregivers and their care recipients. ADS provides out-of-home, supervised, group services with the goal of improving the well-being and quality of life of caregivers and care recipients, while enabling the care recipient to remain in their home for as long as possible. Various programs offer respite and support to caregivers through social, medical, and specialized services.
Recognizing the critical need that family caregivers fill in providing care to older adults, and based on recommendations in the NASEM report, Archstone Foundation released an RFP, Supporting Family Caregivers of Older Adults through Adult Day Services, in 2017.
Supporting Family Caregivers of Older Adults through Adult Day Services
The goal of the RFP was to: 1) strengthen the capacity of Adult Day Services programs as a support for family caregivers; 2) increase the implementation of evidence-based programs and practices for family caregivers; and 3) support strategic efforts that will contribute toward the long-term sustainability of Adult Day Services. Through the RFP, Archstone Foundation supports five Adult Day Services programs in Los Angeles and Orange Counties over three years:
- Alzheimer’s Family Center (Huntington Beach);
- Alzheimer’s Orange County (Garden Grove and Laguna Woods);
- ONEgeneration (Van Nuys);
- OPICA Adult Day Care Center (Los Angeles); and
- Meals on Wheels, Orange County (Anaheim, Buena Park, and Santa Ana).
Archstone Foundation also collaborated with Charitable Ventures to provide evaluation and technical assistance support for the Family Caregiving Initiative and funded additional projects including new direct-service programs and demonstration projects that build capacity and provide support to family caregivers.
Past Projects
California Task Force on Family Caregiving
Archstone Foundation in partnership with AARP California, provided a two-year grant in September 2016, to the University of Southern California for the California Task Force on Family Caregiving. Appointed by the California Legislature, the 12-member task force worked to improve outcomes for California’s family caregivers and their care recipients. The Task Force on Family Caregiving examined issues relative to the challenges faced by family caregivers and opportunities to improve caregiver support, reviewed the current network and the services and supports available to caregivers, and made policy recommendations to the Legislature. In July 2018, the Task Force released their final report entitled, Picking Up the Pace of Change in California.
California Health Interview Survey
The California Health Interview Survey (CHIS) is the largest state health survey in the nation, collecting information on health and health care for more than 40,000 households across California. CHIS is conducted on a continuous basis allowing the survey to generate timely, one-year estimates and provides representative data on all 58 counties to create a detailed picture of the health and health care needs of California’s large and diverse population. Data on family caregivers collected through CHIS was last included in 2009 through a module of questions, and was not included in subsequent years. New data on family caregivers in California is instrumental in identifying target populations of family caregivers for effective interventions and supports. Archstone Foundation provided a four-year grant in December 2017, to the University of California, Los Angeles to include a family caregiver module in the 2019-2020 CHIS.
For more information, please see the policy brief on the data analysis of the family caregiving questions and the webinar hosted by the UCLA Center for Health Policy Research.
Learn about more recent Archstone-funded projects that are helping family caregivers in the Grants Database.
