Strengthening the Financial Literacy & Preparedness of Family Caregivers

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Family caregivers shoulder many emotional and economic burdens in the course of delivering care to loved ones. Their role however is essential. According to a 2018 report from bipartisan policy center the majority of long-term care services and supports comes from family caregivers with estimates reporting that family caregivers have provided $470 billion in care. Additionally, the same report cites a statistic that family caregivers aged 50 and over lose approximately $304,000 in income and benefits over the duration of their care. Consequently family caregivers are especially vulnerable to experiencing the devastating economic burdens of the provision of care. As such, the development and dissemination of training and information to improve and strengthen the financial literacy of family caregivers is paramount in efforts to help them maintain their caregiving duties while concurrently helping them better understand and prepare for the potential financial impacts associated with the provision of care. The target population to be served will be all eligible family caregivers as defined in Title III E of the Older Americans Act. The objectives for this new funding opportunity include:• Advance understanding of the need for and the available interventions to improve financial literacy among family caregivers, incluidng gaps found in existing interventions, and develop a stragety for addressing these needs.• Develop and test new interventions to improve/strengthen financial literacy among family caregivers• Broadly disseminate project findings, new interventions and best practices that emerge from this project. Anticipated outcomes of this three-year project include: an improved understanding of the financial leteracy needs of family caregivers; an improved understanding of existing gaps in finanicial literacy training for family caregivers; measureable increases in the range of fianancial literacy tools and materials available to family caregivers.

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