Each year, National Family Caregivers Month is celebrated throughout the entire month of November. This is a time for us to recognize and honor family caregivers and their efforts, bring awareness to family caregiver issues, and heighten support for family caregivers. According to the 2020 report by the National Alliance for Caregiving, there are 53 million caregivers in the US, and the number of Americans who are providing unpaid care continues to grow. Family caregivers take on this work with an immeasurable amount of love and compassion. In this article, the team at CaringBridge shares ways to pour that same love back into the family caregivers in your life and let them know they’re valued.
What is a family caregiver and what do they do?
A family caregiver is the primary person caring for a loved one facing a health challenge. A caregiver’s duties and responsibilities range from handling doctor’s appointments to providing at-home care to helping with meal planning and transportation. All of us likely know someone who looks after a loved one, and at some point throughout our own lives, each of us will likely have to fill a caregiving role.
Key points of how caregiving takes a toll on family members
- Caring for a loved one can be a fulfilling experience but also highly demanding and emotionally draining.
- The physical and emotional exhaustion that can occur when caring for a loved one on a health journey can be intense and can leave a caregiver feeling overwhelmed.
- Instrumental support is a type of social support focused squarely on assistance provided to meet tangible needs. Caregivers are in need of this type of support but rarely ask for it.
- Family caregivers rank chores, food, financial assistance, personal care, and transportation as the most important categories of support.
- Emotional support is also critical to family caregivers. Feelings of being overwhelmed, isolated, and lonely are prevalent among family caregivers and the loved ones they support on a health journey.
How to honor and care for the caregivers in your life
When you feel ready, check in with the caregiver in your life and ask what their current challenges are—what would help them the most? If you’re looking for ways to let a caregiver know that you care, we’ve gathered some tried-and-true ideas to help you get started.
1. Give them time to care for themselves
Between all of their duties, it can be difficult for family caregivers to find the time for self-care. An incredibly thoughtful way to say thank you is simply giving them a break to focus on themselves.
2. Tell them how you can help
Instead of asking how you can help, tell them what you can do. The strain of a caregiver’s role is already overwhelming; figuring out ways everyone can help adds another thing to their to-do list. Helping with life’s daily chores will be a show of gratitude they won’t forget.
3. Provide meals and sustenance
Cooking and planning meals can add mounds of stress to a caregiver’s already hectic life. A homemade meal, or a gift card to a local restaurant or food delivery service, is a helpful way to make your loved one’s day a little easier.
4. Offer financial support
Offering the gift of money may not sound like one of the most thoughtful caregiver gifts at first, but caregivers often bear the burden of their loved one’s healthcare costs, and financial support may be critical at this time. It’s common to only think about support for medical expenses, but there is so much more that could help a caregiver—groceries, gas money, child care, pet bills, and more. Sometimes covering one item off the list can lift a huge weight off a caregiver’s shoulders.
5. Help them start a CaringBridge page and a GoFundMe fundraiser
The CaringBridge platform surrounds family caregivers with support by offering tools to share and document a health journey, simplify care coordination, and connect caregivers with a supportive community.
Among these tools is also the ability to start a GoFundMe to raise funds to help with anything a caregiver may need, even beyond healthcare expenses. CaringBridge’s partnership with GoFundMe makes it easy to connect a CaringBridge site with a GoFundMe fundraiser to efficiently spread the word about the fundraiser with family and friends.
Testimonials from CaringBridge caregivers
“Using CaringBridge to talk about our journey and to post journal entries and pictures became very cathartic for us. It just made you feel like you had a sense of community, even though you didn’t have it right there staring you in the face.” —Betsy Olesen
“Just getting to let people know what was going on and seeing people’s comments was really encouraging. It meant a lot. Especially because it’s long days at the hospital, and it can be lonely at times. [CaringBridge] felt like a connection to people, but without the burden of texting everyone individually.” —Liz Rowe
6. Spend quality time with them
Reach out. Be there. Show up. Caregivers need someone to check on them. They often make the one they’re caring for their first priority—caregivers deserve to be made a priority, too.
Celebrate family caregivers today and every day
CaringBridge, a no-cost, nonprofit health platform, addresses family caregivers’ needs by improving emotional health and social support, thus helping people come together in support of healing. In partnership with GoFundMe, families can easily rally their community during a health journey. Along with the ideas mentioned in this article, you can also multiply your impact by donating to a CaringBridge fundraiser on GoFundMe. A token of appreciation—big or small—can go a long way in making family caregivers feel loved and supported today and every day.
