- Target:
- California Budget Committee Chairs
- Region:
- United States of America
- Website:
- www.caregiver.org
This petition is now closed.
California is set to see a rapid increase in older adults over the next decade when 20 percent of the population will be over age 65. This population will be more diverse than at any other time in CA history. The estimated 4.5 million unpaid family members are the largest long-term workforce caring for older and disabled adults. The state needs to expand support to family caregivers so adults needing assistance can remain in the community and family caregivers can get the services they need to work, care, and thrive.
The California Caregiver Resource Center (CRC) system supporting unpaid family caregivers requests a budget increase of $10M per year over the next 3 years to expand and retool the system to recognize the changing demographics of California family caregivers and the complexity of care needed by their family members.
With this additional statewide funding the staff in CRCs can:
- More than triple the number of caregivers served who receive information and education during intake (from 18,000 to 55,000 families)
- Increase consultation to new and returning families with critical concerns to over 30,000 families
- Assess and address the complex care of the adult needing assistance and the training, planing, and well-being needs of families (increase from 2,700 to over 8,000 caregivers)
- Provide evidence-based interventions to an additional 6,000 caregivers a year
- Provide consumer-directed short-term respite to over 2,700 caregivers (up from 900)
- Improve data capturing capabilities to track caregiver and care receiver needs and service usage providing data that can demonstrate social impact, improve quality, and aid in planning.
|
Senator Holly Mitchell |
Assembly Member Phil Ting |
| Members of of the Budget Conference Committe: |
|
|
Senators: John MoorLach |
Assembly Members: Chad Meyers |
RE: California Caregiver Resource Center Budget Request: One-time only investment of $30M GF to support the statewide Caregiver Resource Centers system
Fiscal Year 2019-20 Dept. Health Care Services
Position: Support
Dear Honorable Chairs Senator Mitchell, Senator Pan,
Assembly Member Ting, Assembly Member Reyes,
I am writing to you as a family caregiver who supports the 2019 California Caregiver Resource Center Budget Request. The California Caregiver Resource Centers (CRCs) are the lead agencies in California supporting family members and friends who provide unpaid long-term care services to adults with neurological impairments and other disabling conditions.
I know first-hand the value of the services that unpaid caregivers provide, often at our own expense and risk to our physical, emotional, mental and financial health. The care we give often reduces the use of costly institutional care. The value of our labor is estimated to be $58 billion annually. The health impacts of caregiving on family caregivers ourselves exceeds $1 million annually in higher costs.
The CRCs are requesting a one-time General Fund investment of $10 million per year over the next 3 years to modernize and retool the statewide Caregiver Resource Center system so that California caregivers can access the best information, services and support when, how and where we need it.
An investment by the State would allow more caregivers to receive the help we need. Your support of the CRCs to modernize their service delivery system would mean more services to more family caregivers in our homes and workplaces. These services would be personalized and provide immediate access, in multiple languages, to information and training on specific topics that caregivers need.
With additional statewide funding, the CRCs can more than triple the number of caregivers served and increase their ability to provide what each individual caregiver needs, when we need it. The Caregiver Resource Centers help caregivers to address the physical, emotional and financial challenges of caregiving and help keep us employed. All too often the intense stress and strain of caregiving puts us at risk for our own illness, injury and chronic disease, whether we are older adult caregivers, middle-aged members of the sandwich generation or, increasingly, millennials trying to juggle work and school with caregiving.
California was the national leader in 1980 when establishing the Caregiver Resource Center system, and can be again by investing in a demonstrated, next-generation program of services and supports for caregiving families throughout the State.
For these reasons I am pleased to support the California Caregiver Resource Centers Budget Request.
The Increase Funding for California Family Caregivers petition to California Budget Committee Chairs was written by Kathleen Kelly and is in the category Community Services at GoPetition.