CARE Coaching Online
Communicate, Advocate, Relate, and Encourage
Did you know that….
- One out of every four households – 22 million in the U.S. – has a family caregiver providing some form of care or service to a relative or friend over the age of 50 years.
- Nearly two-thirds of these family caregivers are also working – the majority of which are employed full-time.
CARE Coaching Online provides working caregivers with essential tools, knowledge, and skills to effectively deal with the variety of issues arising from caring for their aging parents, relatives or loved ones. These concerns may include:
- Facing health care challenges;
- Maneuvering the health care system; or
- Decision making about relocation and long-term care
CARE Coaching involves methods to help you as a caregiver think differently about caregiving situations so that you may better prepare and feel confident about your responsibilities and actions. Unfortunately, discussions about care preferences often come after a catastrophic event – such as a serious illness or severe fall – occurs. Aging parents may not have considered their potential need and choices for care and services and may be resistant to this kind of conversation.
Developed by Mather LifeWays Institute on Aging, CARE Coaching Online improves working caregivers’ abilities to communicate, advocate, relate, and encourage their older parents or loved ones in making future plans. Learning what is important to aging parents – and learning how to draw that out – often brings to light new information about what they are wanting in terms of their own health and future care.
Using effective coaching skills, this seven-section online education course helps caregivers:
- Identify, understand, and support needs and preferences of older adults;
- Manage health information and record keeping;
- Understand aspects of the health care system and utilization by older adults;
- Better prepare for potential relocation of older adults; and
- Promote the safety of older relatives and friends in caring for themselves.
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CARE Coaching Online
For Employers
Many employers do not realize the impact that caring for an older relative has on an employee’s career and on the organization.
- On average, working caregivers spend up to ten hours per week providing care to one or more older relatives.
- Two-thirds of working caregivers report conflicts between work and caregiving resulting in increased absenteeism, workday interruptions, reduced hours, and workload shifting to other employees.
- The lifetime total loss in income for caregivers who reduce hours, refuse promotions, or leave their jobs is more than $650,000.
- Aggregate costs of caregiving for older adults in lost productivity to U.S. businesses have been estimated as much as $29 billion.
Extensive research demonstrates that companies providing caregiving programs and resources to their workforce benefit employers as much as employees.
- Ten years of research by the Ford Foundation concluded that offering programs for working caregivers reduced absenteeism and improved morale.
- An evaluation by GMAC reported that caregiver programs increased company profitability by decreasing turnover, tardiness and unplanned absenteeism, and enhanced the company’s image.
- Numerous firms reported increased productivity as a direct result of offering caregiver programs.
CARE Coaching Online provides working caregivers with essential tools, knowledge, and skills to effectively deal with the variety of issues arising from caring for their aging parents, relatives or loved ones. Developed by Mather LifeWays Institute on Aging, CARE Coaching Online improves working caregivers’ abilities to communicate, advocate, relate, and encourage their older parents or loved ones in making future plans. Learning what is important to aging parents – and learning how to draw that out – often brings to light new information about what they are wanting in terms of their own health and future care.
Using effective coaching skills, this seven-module online education course helps caregivers:
- Identify, understand, and support needs and preferences of older adults;
- Manage health information and record keeping;
- Understand aspects of the health care system and utilization by older adults;
- Better prepare for potential relocation of older adults; and
- Promote the safety of older relatives and friends in caring for themselves.
As a concerned employer, don’t wait for family caregiving issues to take its toll on your workforce and bottom line. The average cost to employers per working caregiver in lost productivity is nearly $4,200. Considering that one in ten employees is a caregiver, a company with 1,000 employees can expect lost productivity to cost at least $420,000 per year just from working caregivers.
By offering your working caregivers CARE Coaching Online, you are providing them effective resources, available 24/7, to manage their caregiving responsibilities, while reducing unexpected absenteeism and loss of productivity due to caregiving issues.
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Contact
For additional information or enrollment support, contact Jon Woodall at
(847) 492.6753 or jwoodall@matherlifeways.com.
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