Care-Receivers and Caregivers

When it comes to our mission at The Bearing Together Project, there are two primary categories of people that we specifically want to help: Care-receivers and Caregivers.

Care-receivers:

Care-receivers are the individuals who are provided long-term care. In our organization, we specifically focus on people receiving care from friends and family. They have some form of ailment whether it be physical, mental, or emotional that creates the need for assistance in completing daily life necessities. The way that this is conventionally evaluated is by looking at activities of daily living (ADLs) and seeing if the individual can complete those tasks of their own accord, or if they require assistance. The 6 commonly evaluated ADLs are: bathing, dressing, eating, transferring, toileting, and continence.  An inability to complete one or more of these tasks independently can lead to someone needing to receive partial or full-time care. This care can be provided through nursing homes, assisted living facilities, adult care centers during the day, or, as most common by a significant margin, friends and family. There is some support financially through government programs like Medicare, Medicaid, and even other organizations that may assist in some needs.

There is a common issue with this though. There are many programs that exist to support people who need full-time care, but they come with very narrow qualifications. If you make too much/have enough money to your name, don't have enough ailments, or have too much help from friends and family, you will almost certainly not qualify for these programs. We want to change that by providing for care-receivers taken care of by primarily friends and family in numerous ways. Though we still have qualifications, because we want to wisely use the money our donors have trusted us with, we also understand that there are many needs that need to be filled, and we want to help fill them as best we can.

Caregivers:

Caregivers are the individuals that provide the long-term care that care-receivers require. They assist in providing the activities of daily living that care-receivers cannot accomplish on their own. Beyond this, they sacrifice their time, talents, social lives, personal lives, and energy to support someone that desperately needs it. Few people are put into this situation by choice, with most caregivers becoming one by necessity through a sudden hardship or ailment in a friend or family members life. Professional medical workers like nurses, nursing assistants, and doctors primarily provide care in a regulated facility or personal practice. Programs exist where these professionals provide care in the home, but are generally specialized or very expensive. This leaves the majority of people who need full-time care left to be provided for by their friends and family. 

Unlike care-receivers, there are few if any programs to support people who end up becoming at-home caregivers. This leaves caregivers in difficult positions with little support, and often for months or years continually providing care. We want to change that. We want to support the caregiver just as much as the care receiver. The burden of giving the care can be just as difficult as receiving it many times, just in differing ways. We see that need, and want to do everything possible to help fill it.