The Need For Caregiving

As the number of older people increases, there is an increasing demand for both formal and informal provisions of support across the continuum of care. For many people, the challenges of caregiving are often new experiences.  Caregivers and people needing care often lack information regarding these specific challenges as well as available community resources to assist in providing care. A half-century ago, few choices existed for families if an older relative became too frail or ill to live alone.  Today, more support and resources are available to caregivers. However, identifying and accessing available resources is often an added challenge for caregivers and requires time and effort on the part of people in need of this information.  More resources and easy access to resources are needed in order to assist caregivers to be successful in their roles and to be able to provide the best quality of care possible to their loved ones.
Caring for an older person either at home or in an institutional setting is a difficult task and can become overwhelming at times. Each day brings new challenges as the caregiver copes with changing levels of ability and new patterns of behaviour. Research has shown that caregivers themselves are often at increased risk for depression and illness, especially if they do not receive adequate support from family, friends, and the community. These factors combined with increasing lifespan dictates the need to have alternate care givers. As of date a cadre of professionally trained care givers is not present in the country.
Care giving is only next to shelter in terms of priority for all elderly and gains increasing importance with advancing age. 

HelpAge India with a view to develop trained manpower for the Homes for the Aged and the caregivers for the elderly had started Certificate Courses in Care Giving. The aim is to equip the trainees with sensitivity and knowledge about the needs of older persons. The objectives of the courses are

1. To build a cadre of care and support providers, researchers and communication personnel through education, training and research.
2. To increase the knowledge and practice of caregiving conducted through training course to provide adequate care for the older persons
3. To develop and dynamically improve on a set of curricula for the training of home and institutional care providers of the aged and to implement the same as a curricula for training Care Givers in the Institute.
4. To demonstrate replicable and sustainable models in other parts of the country.

The certificate courses for caregiver and managers of homes for the aged were conducted in 13 states. As a result of these courses, more than 400 caregivers were trained.