Project SECURE
Project SECURE
What Is Project SECURE?
The goal of Project SECURE is to shift caring for an older adult from being a mostly challenging time to a mostly fulfilling experience. We want to better meet the family caregiver’s changing needs for respite care, help them build knowledge and skills that make caregiving easier, do meaningful and creative things that improve their quality of life, and provide a knowledgeable partner to accompany and guide them in the whole undertaking to improve the caregiving experience overall.
The project is designed to test the hypothesis that the caregiving experience can be qualitatively and cost- effectively improved by aligning services along a 4-level, multi-directional hierarchy of family caregiver needs:
1. Respite from hands-on caregiving duties, increasing an individual’s and family’s bandwidth. Quality is critical: caregivers do not use respite they do not see as benefitting their loved onesÊ
2. A trusted guide through the caregiving journey, supporting social relationships in general: between the caregiver and their loved one, and between the caregiver and the outside worldð
3. Individual learning and skill-building that create efficiency and further reduce caregiving burden, including emotional stresô
4. Creative and therapeutic activities for the caregiver and the care recipient separately, as a pair, or in groups of family caregivers, leading to better understanding and acceptance of the caregiving role and a deeper and more affirmative caregiver-care recipient relationship along their journey. Helping the caregiver attach meaning and fulfilment to this stage of their lives, “actualizes” the potential reward of the caregiving experience.
About Project SECURE Caregivers
Project SECURE is training a small group of enhanced personal care or home care aides, senior companions and others who currently work for an agency and provide in-home care to an older adult. These newly trained Caregiver Partners continue serving their older adult client, but will now be able to offer more support for the family caregiver, with a care manager supporting them in turn.
How Can Project SECURE Help?
Project SECURE will improve the experience of family caregivers to older adults. We have recognized that each of them needs a variety of support for themselves, for their loved one, and sometimes, for both of them together. A major part of this Project is introducing an expansion of the traditional in-home aide – the Caregiver Partner. While this person continues providing service to their older adult client, they receive extra training and support so they can also focus on supporting the family caregiver.
How Does Project SECURE Work?
The project will fund up to 3 additional hours per week for the Caregiver Partner to provide services with you as their focus. Some of these tasks will be supported or performed by the Caregiver Partner’s supervisor, a professional Care Manager working with Project SECURE. They are typically a social worker who is prepared with extensive knowledge of aging-related issues, available programs and services and recognizes cues indicating emerging needs. In addition, the Project SECURE Care Manager is part of a larger care team and can connect you to other services as needed.
Get Started
Please call Judith Huober at 315-446-911 ext. 236, or email at huoberj@sjfs.org more information. As this is a demonstration project, there are only a limited number of slots available at this time.