Innovative Strategies
Care Renewal's 13 projects have used many ways to ensure that diverse groups of caregivers find respite. They have worked to create change at all levels.
Among caregivers, their families and friends
- Outreach, promotion and awareness-raising activities
- Encouraging people to identify themselves as caregivers and ask for support
- Informing caregivers about available supports
- Educational seminars and events on caregiving topics
- Caregiver information in the form of newsletters, brochures and Web sites
- Information and referral services for caregivers
- Advocacy and support services for individual caregivers
- Caregiver support groups including teleconference and workplace settings
- Financial support for caregivers' own self-care and wellness activities
- Volunteer-delivered respite programs that provide recreational activities for care receivers
- Tools for caregivers to use in considering their respite needs and negotiating access to flexible and individualized supports
Within organizations
- Training for health care providers on caregivers' needs and best practices for supporting caregivers
- Assessment tools that create an understanding of the special needs of certain groups of caregivers (e.g., caregivers of people with psychiatric disabilities, Inuit caregivers) and help professionals develop ways to respond to those needs
- Organization-wide efforts to increase awareness of and responsiveness to caregivers
Among employers
- Awareness-raising activities to increase employers' and managers' sensitivity to caregivers' needs, and insight into how to support caregivers in the workplace
- Information and support activities offered to caregivers in their workplace
Within communities
- Awareness-raising campaigns to increase sensitivity to caregivers in the community at large
- Collaboration with voluntary and public sector organizations to increase opportunities and options for caregiver respite
- Development of regional caregiver networks to raise community awareness about caregiving, and enhance caregiver support
Public policy
- Roundtable meetings with multiple stakeholders (including government representatives) to discuss caregiving issues and ways to create change
- Ensuring that caregiving issues are heard by government committees, officials, etc.
- Raising awareness among federal and provincial politicians and asking for support for a complete policy approach that would allow access to flexible and individualized respite opportunities