Care Connections
The ALS Society of BC is proud to announce a trial for our new Care Connections program!
We are looking for 6 Families to volunteer to become a part of the trial to assist us with feedback prior to launch!
What is a Care Connection?
The Care Connection is a network (circle) of caring people organized to help those living with ALS and their caregivers. It is modeled after The ALS Association Care Connection program in the United States.
Goal
The goal is to establish formalized volunteer care networks for the families of ALS patients to help increase caregiver well-being and reduce caregiver burden.
Purpose
- Decrease the level of worry about caregiver well-being as expressed by the person with ALS.
- Increase the number of weekly social/personal hours available for family caregiver and loved one with ALS.
- Enhance a sense of helpfulness among family, friends and acquaintances that join Care Connections.
The Care Connection program provides the tools necessary for a third party coordinator to bring together a network of people - including friends and extended family of the PALS - so that each may take responsibility for some of the caregiver's daily tasks such as meal preparation, household chores, and any other needed care giving tasks.
How does a Care Connection work?
The ALS Society of BC will be utilizing a customized web based scheduling tool - Lotsa Helping Hands.
The creator of Lotsa Helping Hands found a simple solution, an immediate way for friends, family, colleagues, and neighbors to fill the need to help caregivers after seeing firsthand how a community supported and responded to a family's needs when coping with a serious medical illness.
Seeing how friends wanted to help, but found that they had difficulty organizing their time, Lotsa Helping Hands was designed with the understanding of how to bring together a variety of social circles and what a resulting community like this would need. They have paid special attention to making this web based calendar service easy enough to begin using immediately.
ALS Society of BC will be providing all training, forms and support via conference call.
My family is interested, what is going to be required?
- A close family member or friend who can act as the Care Coordinator. The Care Coordinator must have regular access to internet. It is not recommended that the patient or spouse/primary caregiver serve as the Care Coordinator as the goal is to reduce their tasks. There can be two Care Coordinators to split the tasks if desired.
What is a Care Coordinator?
- The Coordinator is what we call the person who first takes the initiative to create the Lotsa Helping Hands community. This lead Coordinator then adds the initial members (and may even designate other members as additional Coordinators), helps define the volunteer activities, and has a few other privileges for customizing the community web site.
- Anyone can be a Coordinator, but it's usually a close friend or family member of someone undergoing medical treatment or of someone requiring respite from long-term family care giving responsibilities. Coordinators can maintain membership information for other members, post new needs on the calendar, and receive auto-generated confirmation emails when someone volunteers for a task.
- Coordinators can also easily create new custom sections within the community to address the specific needs and make-up of the community, including journals and blogs, photo albums, message boards, recipe sections, and listings of members' skills. The community-building capabilities are only limited by the imagination.
- In short, Coordinators are the people who would otherwise be arranging these same activities by hand, enduring a lot of email and phone tag.
- Family, friends and colleagues who can act as Care Connection Participants. The participants must have regular access to internet.
What is a Care Connection Participant?
- The participants will commit to being a member of the Care Connection and to performing the tasks agreed upon with the Coordinator. Participants will commit to following established procedures to find a replacement (using Lotsa Helping Hands, for example) if they cannot perform their assigned task on a particular day.
- The Care Connection Coordinators will have the greatest time commitment which will depend on the level of care the person with ALS requires, the number of Care Connection team participants, and the degree of assistance desired by the PALS and caregiver. The Care Connection participants will commit to performing a specific task per period of time (e.g., per week or per month) when they agree to join. Tasks may include things like: preparing dinner for the family, gardening, helping around the home, providing transportation, etc.
The Details
- The ALS Society of BC is interested in recruiting 6 families who have a loved one living with ALS in BC. The person living with ALS should be in need of assistance for daily tasks and Caregiving. We would like to have a family from each region in BC (Fraser, Vancouver Coastal, Vancouver Island, Okanagan, Kootenay Region and Northern BC). If regional goals are not achieved, priority will be given based on date of application submitted.
- The Care Connection must be to assist a Person Living with ALS in BC.
- The trial period will be for 3 months (June, July & August 2010)
- The Family, Care Coordinator and Team members will be required to:
- Complete pre-trial survey (confidential)
- Compete post-trial survey (confidential)
- The Family and Care Coordinator will be required to:
1) Participate in 4 conference calls with other participants - 1 pre-trial, 1- end of first month, 1- end of second month, 1 - end of third (and final) month
2)The Care Coordinator and Team members must sign confidentiality agreements to protect the family.
3)There is absolutely no cost to participate in this trial program.
How does my family apply?
- Fill out the application form on the left of this page and email or fax it. Email: patientservices2@alsbc.ca Fax: 604-685-0725.
- Applications must be received before May 15th, 2010 for consideration.
Thank you so much for your interest in assisting us develop new programs for families in BC!