Informal caregivers are often alone in their caring role. Sometimes because they think it is normal and do not seek help, sometimes because they do not know how to find assistance and support. Let’s take a look at how informal caregivers can actually be supported.
How can informal caregivers be guided and supported?
It is important when providing help and support to informal caregivers that the starting point is that the guidance of informal caregivers must start from the questions and bottlenecks that the informal caregiver himself indicates (and not from those matters that external care providers think are a problem). When starting up guidance and support programs, professional care providers (social workers) will notice that various aspects of social work will be discussed.
First and foremost, it will be very important to carry out early detection in order to then identify the bottlenecks and problems together with the client and finally convert these into a (guidance) program with a view to solving the identified problems. .
The guidance of informal caregivers will also focus on further training of informal caregivers, providing useful and necessary information and representing the interests of informal caregivers.
Important elements in the guidance of informal caregivers
Early detection
Early detection is necessary when it comes to supporting informal caregivers. The faster people can be contacted, the faster support can be offered to broaden support. Many people can already be reached through various services of the health insurance fund (for example a social work service), but other home care services must also be involved for this. Finally, it would be an added value if counter clerks and assessment providers for health insurance from health insurance companies could also participate in early detection.
Large and widely branched organizations such as health insurance funds could therefore play a major role in this. The advantage of these large organizations is that there is contact at various levels with the thousands of members and therefore also with the informal caregivers. T his asset could be used much more in practice so that informal caregivers can be better assisted in their task from the start. Provided there is broad training in identifying informal caregivers, a lot can be achieved in terms of early detection. What could of course have an even greater effect is a project at a broader level. For example, a network in which general practitioners and patient organizations are also involved could bear a lot of fruit. After all, the GP is the ideal point of contact and usually the first person to see the situation. In practice, it often happens that the GP provides medical guidance to the informal caregiver because the burden becomes too heavy. General practitioners have the opportunity to make the detection at a very early stage and should be able to easily refer to a social worker who can take care of the informal caregiver. A project of that nature obviously requires resources, time and coordination. However, the resources and time spent on this will certainly pay off in the long term in terms of the quality of extramural care.
Contacting the informal caregiver for an initial conversation
Once the informal caregiver is known, the social assistant can invite him or her for an initial conversation. This can be done at the social worker’s office or during a home visit. Both ways have their own advantages. In the office, the informal caregiver can express themselves much more freely than when in an everyday care situation and, moreover, this office conversation offers a moment of self-reflection and distance. On the other hand, it is more interesting for the care provider to get to know the situation at the patient’s home and the patient (the person in need of care) can also participate in the conversation. Because it is in any case better to concentrate mainly on the informal caregiver in an initial conversation, it may seem more appropriate to have the first conversation take place on neutral ground so that the informal caregiver can talk completely freely and does not have to take into account the patient who is may need care at any time.
The first conversation is fundamental. At that moment, the social worker makes contact with the pain of the person sitting in front of him. Or better said, he examines what is most difficult for the informal caregiver and what exactly poses a problem for him or her. It is interesting to start from that perspective and continue working on tailor-made guidance. As mentioned previously, every situation is unique and tailor-made support will have to be developed for everyone.
If the informal caregiver has no significant questions or if there are no matters in which he or she would like to be supported, you as a care provider can provide your contact details and ask if you can contact us again within 6 months. After all, it is quite possible that the informal caregiver can handle the burden and that the care recipient’s need for care at that time is not yet of such a nature that there is a need for intensive guidance. However, if the informal caregiver wants support and has questions, you will provide tailor-made guidance.
Customized guidance or trajectory guidance
Organizing support for informal caregivers cannot happen overnight. It is a process in which the informal caregiver and the care provider must grow. In order to ensure that guidance is efficient, it is advisable to set up a process in which the care provider and informal caregiver work together to provide targeted guidance. As a method to support informal caregivers, we best choose trajectory guidance.
Pathway guidance is a specialized methodology that is used in various sectors for long-term guidance. Pathway guidance first appeared in the context of the long-term unemployed, later it was also used for integration, people with disabilities, and so on. Pathway guidance itself is usually defined by the sector itself for which the methodology is used. In the context of informal care, we define trajectory guidance as follows: trajectory guidance is a planned, efficient and flexible process in which the informal caregiver is actively involved in putting together, monitoring and evaluating a support package that meets his needs and therefore his capacity to cope. as an informal caregiver is permanently strengthened.
Pathway guidance is therefore seen here as a dynamic process in which there is an interaction between the informal caregiver and the care provider. The program is flexible and can therefore be deviated from the original program in the event of new complications in the disease pattern of the care recipient or in the event of temporarily reduced capacity of the informal caregiver.