TRAVERSE CITY — This spring, the Grand Traverse County Commission on Aging partnered with the Area Agency on Aging Northwest Michigan to introduced a series of educational classes for local caregivers of loved ones with dementia.
The funding, sourced largely from the Caregiver Support Initiative was granted by AANM to Grand Traverse County COA alongside nine other Commissions/Counties On Aging across the state.
These classes are available to any individual who provides care to a senior living in Grand Traverse County, and are one-of-a-kind in their offering.
While other courses exist locally, alongside a few support groups, caregiver support and educational courses are imperative for a number of reasons, including a shortage of professional caregivers.
“I often find that it’s a family member or a friend who is stepping in to provide care, but most of the general public don’t have a lot of information about dementia — certainly not enough to understand what their loved one may be going through and how best to help them,” said Lana Payne, the director of the Grand Traverse Commission on Aging.
“So that’s what our goal is, to reach people who are in that situation.”
Payne, who has been with the program since its inception, credits not only the hard skills associated with the program’s intent, but also recognizes the importance of seeing others who are in a similar position.
“We also see it as a great opportunity for people who find themselves in the same situation, and who come to this caregiver session to make those connections with other people doing the same thing they are,” Payne said.
The courses, which are free to the public and offer respite care for the time periods during which the class takes place, highly value accessibility, knowing that this information is often essential to new (or even experienced) private caregivers.
While Traverse City is slowly reaching a new high in its amount of senior population, the numbers for at-home, family caregivers is rising as well.
“For 2024, in MI, estimated that 1.73 million Michiganians provide an estimated 1.1 billion of voluntary caregiving, which equates to approx 19.6 billion per year. Unpaid caregivers are the largest source of long term caregivers and support countrywide. Caregivers are relied on very heavily to take care of their loved ones and keep them out of state facilities and other types of licensed facilities,” said Kandi Lannen, Director of Community and Business Advancement with Agency on Aging of Northwest Michigan.
“It’s a huge savings to our state, because they don’t have to pay for Medicaid funding to pay for someone to be in a facility; we have caregivers who are stepping up and doing that in the home. It’s remarkable, but we need to support them so they don’t get burnt out.”
On top of programs such as Meals on Wheels that directly serve seniors, the AANM also provides resources such as a 24/7 helpline offering informational assistance and referrals, as well as the REACH program for caregivers, meant especially for those helping loved ones with dementia. Still, the current resources at hand are always due for new angles of development, such as the caregiver education program.
“Every time we can help a caregiver have a better understanding of what their loved one is going through and experiencing, anytime we can increase their skills for caregiving, I think that that would always be the right thing to do. There is not easily accessible training like this — certainly not for free — and we just feel like this benefits caregivers and the seniors themselves,” said Payne.
Local physical therapy provider Northbound Physical Therapy and Wellness offers caregiver resource classes, including preventing falls, mobility, pain and injury as well as self-care for caregivers, all of which have been substantial for those navigating home caregiving. The courses through COA itself are planned to go into next spring, but with that plan comes one challenge: funding.
“We like to follow the expressed needs of caregivers. That’s what we look for, that input, then being able to satisfy whatever need that is. The sad part about the funding, though, is when the state approved it, they only approved it for 2024,” said Lannen. “We have to use it by the end of March 2025, and then it’s gone. The legislators didn’t include it and the governor didn’t approve it for fiscal year 2025. While we’re able to use it, now and we’re so so grateful for it, it’s going to be a gap going into this next year. We’re going to have to get creative.”
However, locating funding is a challenge, Lannen said.
“Sufficient funding is always a concern of ours. We’re a private nonprofit. We heavily rely on state and federal funding to help us. When state and federal funding is not enough, because we do provide programs where we subsidize with other funds (one-time grants) that help get us through. We have to subsidize with grants just to get us through the programming we have now,” said Lannen.
Despite any potential complications, the need for caregiver support surmounts funding obstacles. With the Grand Traverse COA servicing roughly 1,800 seniors in the county, and many of those being taken care of by previously untrained loved ones, there is a need that is impossible to deny.
The classes will continue on into the fall and return briefly next spring. More information on registration can be found on the Grand Traverse County Commission on Aging Facebook page or through contacting Renee Woessner at 231-922-4857.