You Are Not Alone
It doesn’t matter if you are a senior facing the challenges that aging can bring, a family member or a caregiver, it can feel like you are on your own. I know for me, for more than a decade helping my in-laws, parents and uncle through the many issues that arose if often felt like walking through an obstacle course in the dark blindfolded. Not knowing what options were out there, what services we could trust or what were even offered in many cases.
About a year and a half ago, our company added a Caring Transitions franchise where we help seniors and their families downsize, move, get value for their left-over things through estate sales, online auctions and more. I gravitated towards it to help others through what I had done so many times before and knew what they were facing. My role initially was to introduce our services to the Senior Services Professional community to create referral opportunities for Caring Transitions back and forth with these professionals. What I found amazed me. So many wonderful programs, services and real-life changing help for those seniors and their families. Many, if not most, I had no idea even existed, had no idea anyone did some of these services, let alone how to access them. Frankly it actually made me angry. Why didn’t someone tell me?
Through the process of networking with these professionals, throughout the scope of the senior services industries, I would share my frustration and would ask, how can we as an industry do better at reaching out to families, to provide education and resources before they were in panic mode that most of us find ourselves? This struck a nerve, it was such a common frustration by all of those professionals, maybe one of the things they found most frustrating about their careers they have devoted to helping people, is not getting to them soon enough.
We brought together more than a dozen of these professionals across the spectrum of senior services and white boarded possible solutions, what could we all do to reach out, educate, work together to help people facing these challenges. With that Life’s Copilot was born. It is a portal for all things senior. It is a place where seniors, their families and caregivers can go for support. Education is provided by those senior professionals through blogs, educational videos, glossary of terms, ongoing Expert Panels on topics throughout the spectrum of the senior world. It is also a place for Senior Professionals to gather with each other for best practices, networking and more. It is a place for them to speak to the community at large, to reach those people early in their process of learning how to deal with upcoming challenges while more and better options are still available. As well as those who have been blindsided and need helpful resources NOW.
Recently, I have personally joined about a dozen Facebook Support Groups for families and caregivers for Aging parents. The desperation, despair, frustration, pain, hearing family relationships dissolving, feelings of isolation and mourning the loss of their “old” lives is crushing to read. All of the statistics about Caregivers have been given faces and names on these feeds.
Statistically we know, according the National Alliance of Caregivers:
65.7 Million Americans serve as Caregivers for a family member aged or disabled.
29% of all adults are so involved as caregivers.
31% of all American households are engaged in caregiving.
1/6 Millennials are caregivers to a family member.
65% of Caregivers die before those they care for due to the 24/7/365 stress and demands.
Reading and engaging in these groups has proven the need for a safe resource for them like Life’s Copilot is essential.
You can access it at www.lifescopilot.com
Also you can get ongoing education and engagement with our Facebook page.
https://www.facebook.com/lifescopilot