Share the Care is a group caregiving model where volunteers form a support network for someone in need. Speakers describe how it started organically, sustained one caregiver for nine months, and is now being taught through workshops and training to healthcare providers and community groups.
Share the Care is a group caregiving model that shows ordinary people how they can come together and create a caregiving family to help somebody they know who needs help. It not only organizes the people into this family, but it keeps them going over long periods of time.
Even in the most perfect healthcare system, the clinicians can't provide all the cares that a patient needs. Having a group of friends, acquaintances there to meet these needs is critically important.
When the Share the Care group was first formed last year, I thought, "Oh, I don't need this, you know, I can take care of everything on my own," and thank goodness we formed it.
We collected a group of people together, we notified friends and family and colleagues, co-workers, We have a place for everybody, no matter, no matter what they feel that they're able to give. When Share the Care came together, that was a whole different story. They were organizing every single need, every little detail. All I needed to do was just show up. That's the amazing, wonderfully amazing thing about the Share the Care. We formed Share the Caregiving, the organization, the not-for-profit, because we believe We believe that people need to know about this model, and by having the organization, we have been able to reach out to many more healthcare providers, to communities, to the clerical world, and communicate this model.
Even though it's been spreading grassroots style, that takes too long. Share the Caregiving is about education, and promoting the concept of group caregiving. We're working to get the word out there about the model, and the best way for us to do that is through training and workshops and lectures, through our website, through any kind of publicity that we can do that awakens people to the fact that this option is available to anybody.
The thing about Share the Care is it's not just for people who are sick. It's not just for the elderly. It's for anybody who needs some support.
Well, my mission is to build Share the Care, to bring Share the Care to all levels of community involvement. That means to healthcare professionals, to community organizations, to government organizations, and of course to funders, so that the Share the Care model can grow into the fabric of our society.
I just think that this is a wonderful solution for anybody at any time who is ever going to be a caregiver. And I wish that that was available when I was dealing with my own mother.
When Cappy was diagnosed, I thought, "We'll get through this. We'll figure this out. There's a way to get this done." And there is, but I didn't know that it took a group. I didn't know that it took a community, that it took a Share the Care group. And so for about a week, I struggled to try to just manage myself, and then all of a sudden there was a living room full of people who said, "We're here to help." And minute by minute through that meeting, through that first meeting, I could feel the burden lifting. I could feel the load getting lighter. I could feel myself breathing for the first time in a week. And that group was there in every way for the entire 9 months, and it made all the difference in the world.
Akwesasne Radio Interview Reen Cook with Tewentahawih'tha' Cole and Sheila Warnock
Lori Miller of Kawaii Hospice in Kawaii Hawaii - Share The Care - Sheila Warnock
