Taking Care of You
Taking care of yourself while you care for someone else is essential. If you are not in good health, you will not have the personal reserves to adequately care for the person dependent upon you. Their health may suffer. In this section you will find resources that will help you care for your own health, including your emotional, physical, social, spiritual, and financial wellbeing.
The resources listed below address:
Assessing and Addressing your Stress Level
Caregiver Burnout
Caregiver StressMeter
Caregiver Stress: Avoiding Caregiver Burnout, Information for People Caring for a Loved One with Cancer, Princess Margaret Hospital, Toronto, Ontario
Getting Help to Prevent Caregiver Burnout, Region of Peel (Ontario)
How to recognize your emotional responses, Caregiver Connect Guide, VON, 2006 revised 2011.
Karen's Credo for Relieving Caregiver Stress, Long Term Care Planning Network.
Recognizing and Coping with Caregiver Burnout, Region of Peel (Ontario)
Signs of Caregiver Burnout
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Becoming A Caregiver
Becoming a caregiver involves:
- Learning as much as you can about the care recipient's illness, disability or limitations.
- Contacting health and community associations for information about available services and community programs for the care recipient.
- Monitoring the work of the professionals and care workers providing care in the home.
- Talking to the health professionals about the care recipient's condition
Adapted from: Managing Care at Home, How to Care, 2000
To learn more about your loved one's health, check under our "Health Conditions" tab. We have gathered resources that will help you under various subjects there. You will find local, regional and national resources listed that will help you locate appropriate care and support for yourself and your loved one.
Check our site as well for different caregiving tools and templates to organize, monitor and record your caregiving activities.
Canada-wide
At-Home Coping Strategies, How to Care, 2000
Caregiving Support Tools, How to Care
Emotional Journey of Caregiving – The Lived Experience of Caregiving, Caregiver Connect Guide, VON, 2006 updated 2011.
Orientation to Caregiving: A Handbook for Family Caregivers of Patients with Serious Illness is a guide that offers practical advice and support.
What are some of the challenges you can expect?, Caregiver Connect Guide, VON, 2006 updated 2011.
What does it mean to be a family caregiver? Caregiver Connect Guide, VON, 2006 updated 2011.
Manitoba
A Guide for the Caregiver,from Age Friendly Manitoba, is a guide that provides practical advice about providing care to older adults, including valuable information about the role of caregiving, taking care of yourself as a caregiver, and addressing caregiver burnout, and elder abuse.
Ontario
The Caregiver Role, Region of Peel has lots of valuable resources about planning and carrying out your role as a caregiver, including preventing burnout.
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Creating a Caregiving Team
The following resources will help you create a caregiving team for your loved one that meets their needs as well as your own.
50/50: Solving Family Conflict (Siblings as Caregivers)
Lotsa Helping Hands: creating community
Nurses & Caregivers: A team that helps and cares
Organizations that can direct you to services
Pharmacists & Caregivers: A team that helps and cares
Share the care: How to organize a group to care for someone who is seriously ill
Social Workers & Caregivers: A team that helps and cares
Support Groups/Self-Care
Who can help with what: creating your support network
Working as part of the Health Care Team, Caregiver Connect Guide, VON, 2006 updated 2011.
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Caregiver Organizations
Canada-wide
Canadian Caregiver Coalition is the national voice for the needs and interests of family caregivers. They are a bilingual, not-for-profit organization made up of caregivers, caregiver support groups, national stakeholder organizations and researchers. The work of the CCC-CCAN involves: advocacy, research, education, resource development and communication.
Alberta
Alberta Caregivers Association is an organization of family caregivers that offers information, education, support, networking, and advocacy to make caregivers' lives less difficult, and to help them sustain themselves over the caregiving journey.
Family Caregiver Centre (Calgary) provides information, referral, education and support to enhance the abilities and energies of family caregivers across the lifespan. Information and support services are free, though there may be some costs associated with education and special programming.
British Columbia
Caregivers Association of BC is an organization dedicated to helping caregivers in BC find the support and resources they need to make their efforts as caregivers more effective and less taxing on their own lives.
Family Caregivers Network Society (FCNS), Victoria is a not-for-profit society. FCNS informs, supports and educates on issues of concern to family caregivers of adults in the Capital Regional District of British Columbia. FCNS promotes the significance of the family caregiver's role and contribution in the healthcare system.
Mid-Island Family Caregivers Network
Nova Scotia
Caregivers Nova Scotia Association is dedicated to providing recognition and practical supports to friends and family giving care, with services including workshops, informative newsletters focused on caregiving issues, a book and video lending library, telephone caregiver assistance and community-based peer support groups
Ontario
Caregivers' Association of Ontario is an association that works to enhance family caregivers' quality of life by linking individuals, groups and communities and by providing information, education, support and advocacy. They are committed to developing a province-wide, grassroots structure based on strong regional networks of family caregivers and organizations serving family caregivers. For more information, call 416.961.3077
Caregivers' Support Network, Muskoka & Parry Sound
Ontario Community Support Association
Seniors and Caregivers Support Service Unit, Family Service Toronto provides social work services to older people and caregivers. For more information you may also call 416-595-9618.
The Caregiver Role, Region of Peel has lots of valuable resources about planning and carrying out your role as a caregiver, including preventing burnout.
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Caregiving Guides Or Websites That Address The Needs Of Caregivers
A Natural Caregiver Guide for the First Nations of Quebec, First nations of Quebec and Labrador Health and Social Services Commission, March 2009
Also available in French: Guide pour les Aidants Naturels Des Premières Nations du Québec
Accompanying information guide for natural caregivers, 2006, Centre-Ressources pour la Vie Autonome : Région Bas-Saint-Laurent
Also available in French : Guide d'accompagnement et d'information pour les aidants naturels
The Information Package for Family Caregivers is a 16-page pdf downloadable document from the Family Caregivers' Network (Victoria, BC) that offers practical advice including stress and burnout assessment tools, and a listing of local resources.
Caring for Yourself
Caring for yourself while caring for others, CaregiverStress.com.
The Care Guide is a free and comprehensive resource to help you make informed decisions about seniors' housing, care services and related matters for you or a loved one. TheCareGuide.com provides useful resources and helpful information including care provider listings for retirement homes, independent supportive living residences, assisted living residences, long-term care homes, Alzheimer's care homes, home health care and community support services across Alberta, British Columbia and Ontario.
Look After Yourself First, Caregiving, Seniors, Social Development, Government of New Brunswick.
Fit-in 15
MyHealth. Find Your Way to Better Health
Reducing Caregiver Stress, Alzheimer's Society of Canada.
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Financial Assistance
Check the listings under the Financial Resources heading for information about benefits for caregivers.
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Respite Care
Respite is the break that caregivers get by allowing someone else to temporarily take over some of their caregiving duties. Used on a regular basis, respite care helps prevent caregiver burnout, by relieving some of the caregiver's workload and stress.
Respite care usually takes one of three forms:
- arrangements can be made for someone to come into the home to look after or sit with the care recipient (even if the caregiver is at home)
- the care recipient can be booked for a short stay (overnight, weekend, a week or more) in a long-term care or other facility
- the care recipient can be registered to attend an adult day program
From: Respite Care, How To Care, 2000.
British Columbia
Adult Day Centre Program, Langley Seniors Centre.
Adult Day Program, Family Respite Centre, Vancouver Coastal Authority.
Choosing a Caregiver for a Child with Special Needs, Community Respite Care Committee, Victoria B.C., 2007 is a 34-page pdf document that provides guidelines to parents for choosing respite care providers for their children with special needs.
Family Respite Centre, Health & Home Care Society of BC
Vancouver Coastal Health helps you locate health services, such as respite programs, throughout the province, with an alphabetic search by service type or location.
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Spirituality
Many hospices, hospitals, long-term care facilities and other similar caregiving facilities offer chaplaincy services. You can ask for a visit for your loved one, or you can ask to meet with someone to help you address your own needs. In addition, many communities have spiritual directors who specialize in helping individuals address the spiritual issues that may arise from caring for a loved one with special needs, living with a progressive life-threatening illness or who has died.
Information for Caregivers :
Self-care and spiritual health, Resource Guide for Family Caregivers, Family Caregivers' Network Society, 2006
A Spiritual Journey, How to Care.
Spiritual Directors International
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