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How to Best Support Caregivers with Savy Makalena
Manage episode 450937257 series 3406334
🎙️ Caregivers are not only an under-served community, they are a non-served community. How is it possible that the people who take care of our ailing and elderly populations, can be so thoroughly forgotten and neglected? Luckily, there are solutions and people are working on ways to better support our society's caregivers.
✨ In this conversation Savy Makalena, CEO and Founder of "Gimme a Break", shares the story of how she was lead through her caregiving journey to creating the caregiver support organization known as "Gimme a Break", a nonprofit dedicated to supporting caregivers by offering them emotional and physical respite, as well as, valuable resources for sustained well-being.
🧡 Savy shares her personal caregiving journey, the struggles caregivers face, and the inspiration behind her mission.
🏛️ We'll also dive into the financial challenges affecting caregivers, an innovative Bill proposal to support them financially through the unemployment system, and the importance of self-care and mindful moments in the caregiving journey. Whether you're a caregiver or know someone who is, this episode is packed with invaluable insights and resources.
📻 Stay tuned to learn how you can get involved and support this critical cause!
In this episode they covered:
🔹 Broadening the Definition of Caregiving
🔹 "Gimme a Break" Inspiration
🔹 Financial Struggles of Caregivers
🔹 Legislation and Support Systems
🔹 Important Conversations About Future Care
🔹 Accessing Resources
🔹 Mindful Moments and Self-Care
🔹 The Role of Community and Support Networks
🔹 Challenges in Balancing Caregiving and Employment
🔹 Future Planning for Caregiving
📽️ To watch this episode: https://youtu.be/XUMDs-K3qrU
🔗 For more information about Savy Makalena and "Gimme a Break", please visit:
📲 https://gab808.org
📲 https://www.facebook.com/gab808
📲 https://www.linkedin.com/company/gab808
📲 https://www.youtube.com/@gimmeabreak808
#SavyMakalena #KellyAugspurger #gab808 #GimmeABreak #SteadfastCarePlanning
For additional information about Kelly, check her out on Linkedin or www.SteadfastAgents.com.
To explore your options for long-term care insurance, click here.
Steadfast Care Planning podcast is made possible by Steadfast Insurance LLC,
Certification in Long Term Care, and AMADA Senior Care.
Come back next time for more helpful guidance!
Chapters
1. How to Best Support Caregivers with Savy Makalena (00:00:00)
2. Introduction (00:00:13)
3. You are a caregiver if you take care of people, pets, or plants. (00:00:50)
4. I want our listeners to know, tell us about "Gimme a Break". I know it's a nonprofit. We're supporting caregivers. Why did you start "Gimme a Break", Savy? (00:01:51)
5. Savy's caregiving journey. Her whole life has been caregiving. (00:02:09)
6. Savy always tells people that I went into 9 months of depression and I gave birth to a mission. (00:03:11)
7. How are caregivers affected financially? Like what kind of financial concerns do they have and what can be done to support them? (00:04:01)
8. Going to the National Caregiving Summit every year, and I am going again this year. And last year when I was talking to legislators, I pitched to the idea that there's a way to pay caregivers now without having to take time to develop any other systems. (00:05:28)
9. Savy has a Bill that didn't quite make it to the floor last year. So we're really advocating for this year. And that's basically just to make a small little tweak to the current unemployment system to get caregivers paid. (00:05:48)
10. When asked if available to work caregivers must say. "No". Bill is asking that with that "No", there's just one more line added, "Are you currently caregiving?" And if that can be approved, then they can qualify. Which puts them in the system. (00:06:20)
11. How to support Savy's Bill. (00:07:26)
12. Savy's website has an advocacy page to sign and share your support for the Bill. (00:07:36)
13. Why have we never thought of this solution before? To get caregivers paid through unemployment is so simple but has been totally overlooked. (00:08:10)
14. When the Bill gets passed, then we can go in and look at a long-term solution and set up a whole system for that and try to find funding for it, rather than trying to get all of that done first. (00:09:20)
15. AMADA Senior Care Commercial (00:10:06)
16. And so with this Bill, Savy, how could caregivers prove that they're caregiving? Have you addressed that portion of the Bill? Like, what kind of documents do you think would able to be provided in order to prove that? (00:10:37)
17. I think that that's all in the immediate to get it going that we need and then fine tune it later. I think that if we lose sight of why the Bill is here, the Bill is here because care caregivers are becoming a burden to society. (00:11:35)
18. If a family has a long-term care insurance policy for mom and dad, okay, are those benefits, are they paid out in cash? Because if they are, those family caregivers can get paid. If it's a cash indemnity policy, they can get paid to provide that care. (00:12:21)
19. Caregivers need to think about their care receiving plan. Because if you don't do something about that now, you're not going to be able to have that, and somebody else is going to be in the same shoes as you. (00:13:15)
20. We want to create a plan now of who's going to provide care, where we want to receive care and how we're going to pay for that care. (00:14:42)
21. It's really important because if you start talking about long-term care insurance, that just starts the ball rolling on so many other conversations that need to happen. (00:15:46)
22. What kind of resources outside of the financial that we've just talked about are most helpful for caregivers? (00:16:16)
23. Go to their Office of Elderly Affairs in their state, there's a myriad of wonderful resources. (00:16:28)
24. And if you're having a hard time, of course contact "Gimme a Break". We can help you. (00:17:13)
25. National Alliance of Caregiving, NAC. Go online to their website. Just type in "caregiver support" to Google. (00:18:12)
26. Stop asking for help. You're the CEO of this journey. So delegate the help that you need and tell people, "I need this, you need to find me this," and get that information and get that support that you need. (00:18:38)
27. The CLTC Commercial (00:19:00)
28. The importance of really taking a respite for caregivers, because you see this on a day to day basis. Like what, practically, might that look like for caregivers to take a break? (00:19:30)
29. We teach caregivers how to embrace that moment, how to have that mindful moment. And that moment could be anywhere from 10 seconds to 10 minutes. And in that time doing that more often throughout the day. (00:20:20)
30. Delegating support. Where you go from that slave mentality, "I'm a slave to caregiving" to the "I'm the CEO of this caregiving journey." (00:21:11)
31. Savy's classes and support groups are online. They're all virtual. Everything's online. "Gimme a Break" has been online since they started. (00:22:19)
32. Caregivers are even using apps, or technology to help them during those mindful moments. (00:23:04)
33. The Calm app. (00:23:23)
34. Schedule 3 times during the day at any time you want, and then entitle it "Breathe". (00:23:52)
35. It's all about the mindset that you create and that you perpetuate. (00:25:00)
36. Try to pull the memories of when the times were good. And so if you have more of those memories than the bad memories, then that'll be a better way to heal. (00:25:42)
37. Plan for your care receiving plan. Reach out, get the support. There is support there. They can always contact us. There are a lot of other wonderful agencies. (00:26:16)
38. "Gimme a Break "website, which is G-A-B, as in "Gimme A Break". www.gab808.org (00:27:00)
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