


Home \| Elder Rights \| Health \| Pension Watch \| Rural Aging \| Armed Conflict \| Aging Watch at the UN

	SEARCH	SUBSCRIBE
			Mission \| Contact Us \| Internships \| Donate Now!

Want to support Global Action on Aging?

Click below:

Thanks!

Program Aims to Ease Burden on Caregivers

By Sharon Denning, Odessa American

January 25, 2003

The Area Agency on Aging is in the enviable position of having more money than it knows what to do with for one of the services it offers 17 West Texas counties.

The Texas Department on Aging was especially generous in November when it granted the Permian Basin agency $47,000 for the 2002-2003 fiscal year for its caregiver respite program.

The program provides vouchers to qualified applicants, essentially giving them a $300 “allowance” to use within a three-month period to hire a substitute caregiver for their loved one so they can have a little time off.
Jeannie Raglin, a caregiver program specialist with the Area Agency on Aging, said 33 applicants have already received $9,900 in vouchers.

But most of these clients are repeat beneficiaries of the program and received some of the $12,000 the Permian Basin agency had to distribute when the caregiver respite program began in April 2002.

Because there’s still a lot of money available, Raglin wants to spread the word that there’s money up for grabs.

“We want to help as many people as possible,” she said, “particularly people in some of the smaller outlying towns and rural counties who don’t have access to as many respite resources as people in Midland and Odessa.”

Getting a haircut, going to the grocery store or even having four uninterrupted hours to nap or read is a big problem for caregivers who lack the money to pay for substitute care yet have sufficient income to knock them out of consideration for other state-supported assistance, Raglin said.

This program is specifically targeted for this population. To qualify, the applicant must be caring for an individual who is 60 years old or older and live in the same house as the person being cared for.

The care recipient has to have assistance with at least two daily living activities — bathing, feeding or grooming, for example — and can’t be receiving another form of caregiving support from the state because that would be a duplication of services, Raglin said.

The program has proved to have at least two recognized benefits.

First, the substitute caregiver can be another family member or a trusted neighbor. The only limitation is that this person can’t live in the same household as the caregiver and recipient.

“Many people are reluctant to leave their loved one with someone they don’t know very well,” Raglin said. “This way, they can pay someone they trust for the real service they’re providing them.”

The agency isn’t writing caregivers checks for $300, though. Instead, it uses a voucher system.

An approved applicant gets a handful of vouchers that the substitute caregiver fills out. Each voucher lists the time the individual worked and the wage that was agreed upon by the caregiver and the substitute. The agency pays the substitute caregiver when a voucher is submitted.

Raglin said based on the first few months the program has been in place, the average wage paid for substitute caregiving is $5 an hour. With a $300 pool of funds to draw from, that means a caregiver can have about 60 hours of free time in a three-month period.

Another benefit of the program is that it allows caregivers to determine how they want to “spend” their free time.

“We’ve had a mother who is taking care of her own mother hire her daughter, who is a college student, to be her substitute caregiver when the girl is home for the holidays,” Raglin said. The mother likes to leave town for a weekend off with a few hours to spare.

Another woman, Raglin said, used her lump sum of time so she could travel out of town to attend her grandchild’s high school graduation.
Still, there are others who like to divvy up the time in hourly increments so the breaks, though short, continue for three months.

Applicants are allowed the equivalent of $600 in vouchers for respite care during the fiscal year if they can qualify twice. The second distribution of grant money will be in September, Raglin said.

The application process is simple, and turnaround time is about one week since Raglin does the paperwork in her office.

She said she can determine if a person qualifies for the program through a phone call. If that seems to be the case, she mails the caller a simple application. When she receives the application, she mails vouchers and instructions to the new client.

“I really want this to be used by the people who need it,” she said. “That’s why we’re trying to get the word out a second time since this new money became available two months ago.”