The Wisconsin Alliance for Family Caregiving has established a state-wide network of trainer/advisors who help employed family caregivers cope with the challenges of balancing elder care and work. Spearheaded by a leadership group that includes representatives of the University of Wisconsin Extension Service and local Area Agencies on Aging, the program educates and provides resources to human resource and employee assistance program professionals.

Claire Culbertson, MPH, culbertson@ co.dane.wi.us Caregiver Program Coordinator, Area Agency on Aging of Dane County, Madison WI, and Marilynn Ley Lawler, BSN, MA, Mlawler@in depenliving.com director of community relations, Independent Living, Inc., of Madison, WI presented details of the state-wide effort at the 2007 Joint Conference of the American Society on Aging and the National Council on Aging in Chicago, IL.

Caregiver Institute Sparks Action

The idea for the education effort sprang from a 2004 presentation by writer/consultant Leah Dobkin leahdobkin@aol.c om at the Caregiver Institute. The Dane County Caregiver Alliance, comprised of 18 leading health and social service organizations in the Madison, WI area, formed an employer outreach committee and charged it with three objectives:

• Build the case to businesses about how employed caregivers are impacted by the growing incidence of juggling work, home and caregiving responsibilities,
• Show how it effects their bottom line, and
• Provide workable solutions to employers to retain valuable employees.

The group worked with Dobkin to take these actions in 2004-2006:

• Organized and promoted an Employer Forum attended by 25 employers
• Conducted a presentation at a local chapter meeting of the Society for Human Resource Management attended by 15 human resources professionals
• Conducted a presentation at a gathering of 35 Employee Assistance Program (EAP) professionals
• Conducted an on-going series of Powerful Tools for Caregivers workshops for employers in the downtown Madison, WI area.

Simultaneously, two professors from the University of Wisconsin Extension Service, Mary Brintnall-Peterson mary.brintnall- peterson@uwex.edu and Diane Weber dianne.we ber@ces.uwex.edu became certified as Master Trainers by Bringing Elder Care Home LLC. They, in turn, trained over 50 trainers to present the seminar Elder Care and Work: Finding the Balance®.

The trainers, based in a variety of agencies and organizations throughout the state, present the seminar in community settings as well as in the work place.