Reports Offer Insights on Experiences of Family Caregivers
Four reports evaluating California’s 11 Caregiver Resource Centers’ (CRCs) service delivery expansion project provide rich insights on family caregiver needs and how the CRCs are meeting those needs with improved services.
Over the past four years, the UC Davis School of Nursing and the Family Caregiving Institute have worked in conjunction with FCA and the California Caregiver Resource Centers (CRCs) to create yearly evaluation reports that illuminate the experiences, demographics and service needs of family caregivers across California.
The reports, titled Picking Up the Pace of Change: Scaling Services for a Changing Caregiver Profile, have provided a yearly evaluation of a state-funded expansion of caregiver services across California.
Expansion of Services for California Caregivers
In 2019, California’s 11 CRCs (including FCA, which serves as the Bay Area’s CRC) received state funding to expand and improve family caregiver services over three years, with a focus on modernizing and expanding technology platforms.
CareNav™, a secure online tool created by FCA for family caregivers, is the online tool at the center of the expansion project. As the first social-care record system for family caregivers, CareNav provides not only individualized information and support to caregivers, but extremely rich and dynamic data to the CRCs, enabling them to improve services and tailor them to caregiver needs.
Report Findings and Implications
To date, four reports have been released alongside the expansion project, beginning with the statewide deployment and integration of CareNav across all 11 CRCs. The robust nature of CareNav data has enabled far-reaching analysis and findings by the reports’ authors.
The reports shed light on many aspects of caregivers’ experiences—ranging from demographic information and complexity of caregiving tasks to the impact of caregiving on caregivers’ wellbeing. The findings also provide critical understanding of how well caregiver services are meeting needs, including for vulnerable populations.
The reports also provide key insights and implications for researchers, policymakers, community organizations, agencies and others serving family caregivers.
Read the reports’ executive summaries here:
1st Year Evaluation — Executive Summary
(report date: September 15, 2020)
2nd Year Evaluation — Executive Summary
(reporting period: July 2020 – June 2021)
3rd Year Evaluation — Executive Summary
(reporting period: July 2021 – June 2022)
3rd Year Evaluation — Executive Summary
(reporting period: July 2022 – June 2023)
You can also read our Q&A with Heather Young, one of the reports’ lead authors. Published after the release of the first report, this conversation provides valuable context, perspective and takeaways.