Caregiver Navigation Services

Key findings used in wiki

• USAging, in partnership with ADvancing States, the National Resource Center on Native American Aging, and the Scripps Gerontology Center, leads a national effort under ACL's National Caregiver Support Collaborative to strengthen caregiver navigator services within Older Americans Act (OAA)-funded Title III-E and VI-C programs.
• More than 63 million Americans provide unpaid care to family members, friends, or loved ones, and the effort names navigating the complex systems of available support as a significant barrier for many of them.
• The initiative describes caregiver navigation services as work that connects caregivers to vital resources at the right time and in the right way, delivered through Older Americans Act-funded Aging Network programs including Area Agencies on Aging.
• An accompanying environmental scan, informed by direct input from Area Agencies on Aging, State Units on Aging, technology leaders, and family caregivers representing all 50 states, documents where current caregiver-navigation practice is strong and where gaps remain.
• USAging has awarded 18-month grants to twelve Aging Network organizations across multiple states (including agencies in Arkansas, Texas, North Carolina, Arizona, Florida, Washington, Wisconsin, Iowa, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Massachusetts, and Kansas) to evaluate caregiver-navigation processes and their impact on caregiver outcomes; this evaluation was described as underway, not as a completed effectiveness finding, as of retrieval.