FCA Shares Fourth-Year Evaluation on the California Caregiver Resource Centers’ Service Delivery and System Change

Family Caregiver Alliance is pleased to share our Fiscal Year 2022-2023 family caregiver data. This annual evaluation conducted by the Family Caregiver Institute at the UC Davis School of Nursing analyzed data in CareNav™, an online platform deployed across the California’s 11 Caregiver Resource Centers (CRCs), to provide important insight on the demographics, experiences, and service needs of nearly 14,000 California family caregivers of adults with cognitive and physical disabilities.

Read the report’s Executive Summary

The report authors assessed the impact of CareNav™ deployment across the CRCs—the impact on the daily lives of caregivers and the impact of the CRCs understanding more deeply about their caregiver clients. The authors outlined six major findings:

CRCs serve caregivers who provide complex, intense, and time-consuming care. Caregivers are often the primary or only caregiver in the situation and commonly have little family or paid support.

Caregivers highly value the support provided by the CRCs. They are highly satisfied and emphasize the crucial impact of the personal interaction and coordinating role of family consultants, who establish a trusting relationship and provide guidance and support. Combined, CRC resources improve mental health, reduce stress and increase the capacity of caregivers to engage in their vital role.

Inequities exist in the distribution of caregiving demands, resources and outcomes. Older caregivers compared to younger caregivers, those who identify in racial and ethnic groups other than White non-Hispanic, and those with income below the FPL compared to higher income have greater caregiving demands, fewer resources and more adverse outcomes.

The CRCs have substantially increased their outreach and education over the past year. Public outreach increased and educational program offerings nearly doubled, including statewide programs in English and other languages.

CareNav™ implementation is advancing. Sites are increasingly using data for program decision-making. However, caregiver adoption of CareNav™ is similar to last year, with awareness and technical support as major barriers. Those who use the online platform are very satisfied.

Longitudinal analysis of caregivers enrolled in CRCs reveal improvements in caregiver outcomes, including burden, loneliness and depressive symptoms. These positive changes underscore the impact of the CRC service model on the lives of family caregivers and the importance of ongoing investment in these services.

Learn more about these findings in our Q&A with the report’s Co-Principal Investigator and author, Heather M. Young. You can also download an infographic of them.

In addition to the authors’ key findings, FCA took away the following insights from this important report:

CRC collaboration enabled almost 2,000 education activities delivered to 28,000 caregivers

Together, 11 CRCs provided a robust program of high-quality education activities to a large population of CA caregivers, including many in underserved communities. Using a shared online calendar, the CRCs produced 1,916 education activities statewide, reaching almost 28,000 people. Seven hundred and twenty-five of those activities were classes — of which 360 were in a language other than English.

Caregiving is becoming more intense, causing some caregivers to retire early

The percentage of caregivers providing 40 or more hours of care each week ranges from 62.5% – 86.9% (this is across all ages 18 – 85+, and genders and ethnicities). Most CRC caregivers provide high intensity care (>87%). This percentage increases with age.

In the 12 months before a typical caregiver contacted FCA or their CRC for support, 8% had quit their job or retired early. This could be tied to the intensity and demands of caregiving. Besides affecting the financial wellbeing of caregivers, early retirements also impact the larger workforce by decreasing the contributions of seasoned workers.

Caregiver demographics continue to shift

We continue to learn about who caregivers are and who they are caring for. This report illuminated some interesting data:

~50% of caregivers are races/ethnicities other than White
53% of caregivers are under 65
Adult children, other relatives and non-relatives comprise 63% of caregivers

For more information about this report and those that preceded it, please visit our Q&A interviews with Heather M. Young (Q&A about this 2022-2023 report and Q&A about the 2020-2021 report) and our “round-up” blog about all evaluation reports to date.