Thursday, October 3, 2013
The Power of Language
Tuesday, May 28, 2013
Heroes in the Home
Unpaid caregivers recognized for sacrifices
Melissa Ruffolo at the Heroes in the Home banquet Thursday. Julie Jocsak/ St. Catharines Standard/QMI Agency
They are thrust into the role of caregivers at a time when their biggest worries should be dating and acne.
Youth who care for grandparents with dementia, siblings with autism or parents with mental health issues.
“I used to feel nobody else was going through the same thing,” said 15-year-old Melissa Ruffolo of Niagara Falls, who cares for her mother with bipolar disorder. She now sits on the youth advisory board of the St. Catharines-based Powerhouse Project, an organization that provides support to young carers under 18.
“I guess I’m happier because of them. I’m not alone,” she said.
Over 300 kids in Niagara are registered with the Powerhouse Project, part of the Young Carers Initiative. The group was being honoured with a Caregivers Recognition Award Thursday night at Club Roma by the Hamilton Niagara Haldimand Brant Community Care Access Centre.
The access centre, which connects people to support services, recognized 49 Niagara residents Thursday who take on unpaid caregiving responsibilities at home. They are adults with aging parents, spouses with partners who have fallen ill and even teenagers caring for parents or siblings.
“They’re unsung heroes many times,” said Melody Miles, Chief Executive Officer of the access centre. “This is just a way to say, ‘You make a difference.’”
Often under the radar, many caregivers were nominated by support staff going into homes who noticed family, friends or neighbours making sacrifices. Many of those residents don’t have the benefit of a caregiving community.
It was the third year “Heroes in the Home” were recognized by the access centre.
“These are folks who are not paid,” Miles said. “They do it because they love who they do it for.”
For Ruffalo, who lives with her mother, joining Powerhouse Project last year allowed her to connect with other youth going through similar situations. She takes part planning events and has been able to help others who thought they were alone.
“At first I was shy but it did help me it he long run,” she said.
One Canadian study found 12% of youth between 12 and 17 consider themselves a caregiver.
“They’re the silent population,” said Michelle Lewis, executive director of Powerhouse Project. Lewis said no one at school can relate to them but in the program there is some normality. It provides respite and helps kids manage feelings of stress, isolation and self-esteem.
The average age of Niagara children in the program is eight to 12.
“They’re beyond their years in age. They have to grow up quickly,” she said. “Their families are under a lot of stress above and beyond normal life.”
Those youth and adult caregivers honoured Thursday were from across the region and were given a pin to recognize their efforts.
BY THE NUMBERS
2.7 million - No. of Canadians 45 and older who provide care to an older person with a long-term health condition or physical limitation according to Statistics Canada
$24-$31 billion - The dollar figure representing how much unpaid caregivers in Canada contributed in 2007 according to a study
12% - No. of youth between 12 and 17 who self-identified as young carers in a 2010 Canadian study of high school students
CBC Radio The Current Story
In the CBC interview (link posted below) my daughter and I both share candid recollections of what the early days of living through a devastating Multiple Sclerosis relapse were like.
While CBC did an excellent job of capturing how my illness personally impacted my daughter the impacts had profound ripple effects that challenged many other people. My children felt the impacts of my illness most personally. They felt the uncertainty and unpredictability of my illness as personally as I did. They rode waves of sadness, anger at the disease, at its intrusion into our autonomy, and anger that I wasn't able to be the solid rock they had always counted on and needed. When a person experiences the symptoms and diagnosis of a chronic condition the whole family is impacted in a variety of ways.
The impact of my illness rippled out from my small nuclear family to my parents, to my friends and to my coworkers. My mother quit her job to help care for me and my kids. Without her incredible support I would have never made it out of hospital and home. She came to my home everyday; she cooked endless meals, did laundry and cleaning. My ability to keep up with day to day chores had been dwindling for sometime and there was tons of work that needed to be done. My mom and dad coordinated a ramp being built to enable my return home from hospital long before I was ready to leave. Without their endless care, encouragement and support I don't know how we all would have made it.
Note: We are sharing this story with purpose. We would like to shine a light on the strengths and needs of families living with chronic illness to promote the Young Carers Movement. As members of Young Carers Canada we support the development of supportive programs directed at Young Carers and their Families. In our area there is programming available through the Young Carers Initiative in their program The Powerhouse Project. This programming is available in Niagara and Haldimand-Norfolk. Across Canada there are other programs and services available in select areas but a more comprehensive nation wide strategy is necessary. These programs provide support, information, respite, homework help, and skills training.
With that as an introduction here is the story as captured by CBC Radio:
The story of Young Caregivers
Friday, March 29, 2013
National Interest in Young Carers
Saturday, January 26, 2013
Who Cares About Young Carers?
Who Cares About Young Carers?
Posted: November 20, 2012 Filed under: Canada, Education, Leadership, Public Policy, Social, Vass Bednar | Tags: Action Canada, Invisible policy challenge, Young carers 3 Comments »
Vass Bednar
I didn’t.
This summer, when my Action Canada Task Force was developing our policy project, I resisted exploring these people called “young carers.” It felt fake and imagined. The fact that I hadn’t heard of young care giving before made me wince. I mean…there was no way it was a Canadian policy priority if it wasn’t on my radar (joke). I doubt it’s on yours.
More seriously: I felt like caring for a family member was just something normal and loving and and that “it” had always existed – so why worry about it now, and why make a big policy deal about it?
“Guys!” I dismissively implored my team via Google+ Hangout, “We can’t do a project on something no one’s ever heard of!”
But guess what? We can.
Some background: Action Canada is a public policy and leadership development program for promising young Canadians. Each year, up to twenty Fellows are selected from across the country to participate in the 11-month program. In addition to learning more about different parts of the nation and crafting op-eds, Fellows are assigned to a “Task Force,” where we develop an action-oriented policy project related to a theme. You can check out past projects here. This year’s theme is: Does Canada have the education system(s) it needs to meet the socioeconomic challenges of the future?
We spent May, June and July in an intense deliberative process where we sought to agree on a meaningful and relevant topic. Our options bubbled with subjects that stakeholders obviously cared about: the “boy problem,” Aboriginal education, teacher training, school readiness, e-learning, and culturally relevant health and wellness. And then the novel and totally unfamiliar: young care giving.
Who are these considerate youth? Young carers are most commonly identified as young individuals under the age of 25 who play a significant role in providing physical and emotional care to a disabled, ill, or mentally challenged family member such as a parent, grandparent or sibling (precise definitions vary). They are an important but uncounted group in many Canadian communities. We are focusing on teenagers— young carers between the age of 12 and 18, though we acknowledge that there are significant numbers of young adults and younger children who are also young carers.
Why teens? We believe that teenage caregivers are an important subset of this group because they are situated at the confluence of elementary school, high school and higher education. The level of support provided at this stage in life will strongly influence their completion of high school, and transition to postsecondary education or the workforce.
We hope that our project will help lend urgency to what is currently an invisible (or less visible) policy challenge. There has been some buzz around the topic lately. In particular, a report out of the Vanier Institute called, Young Carers in Canada – the Hidden Costs and Benefits of Young Caregiving(2012) helped position the familial issue.
And yet, the lack of a collective identity amongst young carers coupled with the inherent private-ness of the activity continues to contribute to its elusiveness on any policy agenda. In fact, young carers are emblematic of a classic policy dilemma whereby a lack of data and sense of urgency are at odds with each other: early research suggests the activity is prevalent, which compels concerted national survey research; and the absence of such descriptive national data weakens the seriousness of the problem.
So, who cares?
Right now, the non-governmental sector does. The Cowichan Family Caregivers Support Society, Hospice Toronto, and the Niagara Powerhouse Project are all engaging young carers and beginning to share program-related data that is helping us better understand young carers. But their impact is limited to local geographies and addresses only a piece of a much larger problem. For instance, these locally-based programs do not provide respite, financial assistance to young carers, and are not connected to the health and long-term care system.
Researchers also care. University of British Columbia faculty Grant Charles, Sheila Marshall, and Tim Stainton are leading the charge in a Canadian context by publishing case-study research. Their work provides a reference for other Canadian provinces.
Because Human Resources and Skills Development Canada funds the Cowichan program, we might be able to say that it—government—‘cares.’ But Canadians lack a national strategy for young carers that would officially recognize and define young carers. By lacking a coherent policy response,we’re failing young carers.
And why should educators care? Our policy approach is through ‘education’ interpreted as a mechanism and system because classrooms are a key nexus for support and place of negative impact. Young caring in the home can lead to lateness and absenteeism from school. The psychic burden of caring can also make it difficult to focus on the classroom. Positive outcomes can be realized and measured here.
Our list of potential responses to this problem is plentiful:
- A national survey (more data)
- A video game for young care-givers to raise awareness and build community
- A tool kit in schools as a resource for educators
- A national caregiving strategy that includes young carers
- A walk-on story line about young carers on a popular soap opera
- A monetary transfer in the form of a “carer’s allowance”
- An awareness week and/or festival
- A charity for respite opportunities
- Championship from Canadian public figures
By failing to formally acknowledge and address the reality of young carers, Canada is not only failing a subset of it’s youngest generation but also falling behind comparable jurisdictions that boast sophisticated government-led policy responses to and recognition of young carers like: England and Scotland (Young Carers), Australia (Carers Australia), and New Zealand.
Now, what about you?
If you care, check out our website. And if you (still) don’t, tell us via Twitter! Your reactions will help us shape the final report. And, if you’re in Vancouver, British Columbia on Friday, November 30th, please join us for a Public Dialogue on Challenges and Change in Canada’s Education Systems. We’ll hear from Grant Charles, an Associate Professor in the School of Social Work at the University of British Columbia, Jeremy Berland, Deputy Representative at the B.C. Office of Representation for Children & Youth and Caroline Krause, Member of the National panel on First Nation Elementary and Secondary Education. Plus, you’ll get to learn more about the other Task Force projects, Standardized Testing in Canada and Teaching Questions Not Answers. More information on this event can be found here. The final reports will come out in February if you care to read them.
Vass Bednar (@VassB) is a graduate of the MPP program (2010) and currently works at the School of Public Policy & Governance as the Manager of Engagement and EA to the Director. She is a 2012-2013 Action Canada Fellow who wants to make public policy more fun.
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