Schmieding Program, Caregiver Action Network Collaborate on Workshop
| Sept. 25, 2017 | At the start of the Caregiver Action Network workshop, Mark Gibbons handed out cards asking the 60 caregivers attending how they felt when they fully realized they were the caregiver for a loved one.
The responses most commonly expressed were fear and feelings of being at a loss for answers. As Gibbons and the other instructors were wrapping up the four-hour workshop held at the UAMS Donald W. Reynolds Institute on Aging, he handed out more cards asking what they had learned during the workshop. The answers were very different.
One participant wrote: “It’s good now to be a caregiver with a voice and a force to be reckoned with.” Another card read: “Now, I know I was on point, thank God.”
About 60 people, mostly caregivers, turned out for the four-hour workshop.
The Schmieding Home Caregiver Training Program, a program of the Reynolds Institute, hosted the free “Caregiver Lunch & Learn” workshop Sept. 9 for caregivers who wanted to learn about the newest information about caregiving.
“The network is a natural partner for the Schmieding program, and we were more than happy to provide space and support for the workshop,” said Robin McAtee, Ph.D., R.N., associate director of the Arkansas Aging Initiative at the Reynolds Institute. “Together, we both are working hard to educate caregivers about the best, most compassionate ways to help patients, and we look forward to further collaborations with them, too.”
At eight training sites around Arkansas, the Schmieding program provides education and skills training to family members and paid caregivers caring for older adults in the home, allowing older adults to have choices about how they are cared for.
Headquartered in Washington, D.C., the Caregiver Action Network is a nonprofit organization providing education, peer support and resources to family caregivers across the United States, working to improve the quality of life of the more than 90 million Americans who care for loved ones with chronic conditions, disabilities, disease or frailties of old age.
Mark Gibbons, the senior director for external programs for the Caregiver Action Network, takes the stage at the Jo Ellen Ford Auditorium at the Reynolds Institute.
Trainers from the Caregiver Action Network, including Gibbons, instructed workshop attendees on caregiver tools, creating patient- and family-centered goals in caregiving and engaging in shared decision making. They also reviewed comparative research on effective caregiving and how to find answers to questions about it.
“It was a good turnout,” Gibbons said. “I was pleased with the diversity of the crowd, and I think they walked away learning new things.”
Gibbons is the senior director for external programs for the Caregiver Action Network.
He said the instructors encouraged and were able to spark peer interaction among the caregivers, many of whom shared with each other their experiences and stories.
“Caregivers pay even more close attention to their peers than clinicians, someone who has walked in their shoes,” Gibbons said. “It resonates more. Everyone on our staff has been or is a caregiver. We understand their struggles.”
Roleplaying was an important component of the workshop that helped further instill that understanding.
The roleplaying centered around a cancer patient and included a discussion of five likely treatment options: surgery, chemotherapy, clinical trials, radiation therapy or no treatment at all. To research all five, it’s best to check with the physician, caregiving peers, the internet, and family and friends, Gibbons said. With a volunteer from the audience acting as the physician, the workshop went through each of the five treatment options.
Caregiver Action Network has been communicating and working with the Schmieding program for almost two years, Gibbons said. Recently, the network received a grant from the national Patient-Centered Outcomes Research Institute to do seven workshops across the country. He said as soon as they got word of the grant funding they wanted to come to Arkansas to do a workshop because of the quality of the program here.
“Schmieding is one of the very top training facilities in the country,” Gibbons said. “They have a great center in Little Rock and at the other Schmieding centers throughout Arkansas. People ought to take advantage of it. To not take advantage of that would be disappointing.”