ACL Announces Awards & Initiatives to Advance the National Strategy To Support Family Caregivers

October 3, 2024

ACL is pleased to announce new awards for multiple initiatives that support the implementation of the 2022 National Strategy to Support Family Caregivers. The strategy was developed by the advisory councils established by the RAISE Family Caregiving Act and the Supporting Grandparents Raising Grandchildren Act and 15 federal agencies, with extensive input from family caregivers, the people they support, and other stakeholders. It includes nearly 500 actions to ensure that the almost 53 million family caregivers who provide most of the long-term care in the U.S. have the resources they need to maintain their health, well-being, and financial security while providing crucial support for others.

ACL's combined initiatives also advance President Biden's Executive Order on Increasing Access to High-Quality Care and Supporting Caregivers, which directs federal agencies to take action to make affordable, quality childcare more available to working families; expand access to home and community-based services; grow and strengthen the direct care workforce; support family caregivers; and more - giving the nation a unique opportunity to transform our long-term care systems and mitigate challenges for family caregivers.

Four States To Lead Implementation of National Strategy

ACL announces grant awards to the California Department of Aging, Maryland Department of Aging, Massachusetts Executive Office of Elder Affairs, and Wisconsin Department of Health Services. Each is funded $490,000 for a two-year period to develop statewide activities that implement the goals, recommendations, and actions outlined in the strategy. The grant recipients will collaborate with their state developmental disabilities agency and at least one additional state and tribal agency, with a focus on breaking down silos at the state level and engaging diverse populations that have been historically underserved and under-resourced. Contact [email protected] or [email protected] for additional information.

See Notice of Funding Opportunity: HHS-2024-ACL-AOA-CGNS-0040, "Advancing State Implementation of the National Strategy to Support Family Caregivers," posted June 6, 2024.

National Caregiver Support Collaborative To Develop and Test Navigator Services

ACL has awarded a new grant to USAging totaling approximately $2.5 million over three years. The new grant recipient joins five other projects currently part of the National Caregiver Support Collaborative. USAging will develop an understanding of the use of care and caregiver navigator services - assistance for patients and their families with managing their care through health assessments and staff coordination. This project will also design, develop, and test approaches to provide technical assistance; build the capacity of Older Americans Act (OAA) funded care and caregiver programs that promote navigation services; and evaluate the most successful models for implementing and sustaining OAA-funded navigator services programs. Contact [email protected] for additional information.

See Notice of Funding Opportunity: HHS-2024-ACL-AOA-CGPS-0039, "Advancing Aging Network Capacity to Support Family, Kinship, and Tribal Family Caregivers: Understanding, Testing and Evaluating Caregiver Navigator Services," posted June 4, 2024.

New National Caregiver Support Collaborative Website

ACL has officially launched the National Caregiver Support Collaborative (NCSC) website, which will serve as a hub for all information about and from the collaborative as it works to achieve greater recognition, support, and inclusion of family, kinship, and tribal caregivers. The website will feature resources developed by each of the six NCSC projects, as well as materials produced by the technical assistance and coordinating center, such as caregiver assessments and best and promising practices in a range of topic areas. The site will also promote NCSC webinars, which are open to the public and designed for the aging and tribal services networks.

New Lifespan Respite Special Project To Strengthen the Direct Care Workforce

To increase the local availability of trained respite providers in communities across the nation, ACL has awarded a new $1.25 million Lifespan Respite Special Projects grant to the Respite Care Association of Wisconsin (RCAW). With this three-year project, RCAW will enhance, improve, and streamline the ACL-funded National Respite Care Provider Training to reach a broader audience. In support of ACL's commitment to strengthening the direct care workforce, RCAW and its partners will also undertake various activities to develop, test, implement, and promote innovative approaches to respite care, especially for populations that lack access to these services. Contact [email protected] for additional information.

See Notice of Funding Opportunity: HHS-2024-ACL-AOA-LRSP-0065, "Lifespan Respite Care Program: Advancing the Recruitment, Training and Retention of Respite Care Providers," posted August 5, 2024.

Supplemental Grant Awards in Lifespan Respite Care Program

ACL has released $1.3 million in supplemental funding to grantees in the Lifespan Respite Care Program to further support family caregivers' diverse and evolving respite needs. ACL provided supplemental funding to eight states: Alabama, Montana, New Mexico, New York, Oklahoma, Tennessee, Virginia, and Wisconsin. They will innovate new methods for delivering quality respite services; expand outreach, engagement, education, and awareness of respite services to underserved populations; and focus on respite workforce development expansion. Contact [email protected] for additional information.

ICYMI: Progress Report on Federal Implementation of National Strategy

Earlier this month, ACL delivered to Congress a progress report on federal implementation of the 2022 National Strategy to Support Family Caregivers. The report found that in the two years since the strategy's release, nearly all the federal actions committed to in 2022 were complete or are in progress, and federal agencies committed to almost 40 new actions since the strategy's release.