Report Title:
Family Caregiver Resource Coordination
Description:
Directs the executive office on aging to coordinate a statewide system of family caregiver support services and policies. Appropriates funds.
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THE SENATE |
S.B. NO. |
3252 |
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TWENTY-THIRD LEGISLATURE, 2006 |
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STATE OF HAWAII |
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A BILL FOR AN ACT
relating to caregiving.
BE IT ENACTED BY THE LEGISLATURE OF THE STATE OF HAWAII:
SECTION 1. The legislature finds that, in recognition of the critical contribution families make to the well-being of older adults who want to remain in their own homes for as long as possible, family caregiver support is a major initiative of the executive office on aging. In Hawaii, such care translates into an estimated $875 million annually in long-term care costs borne by family and informal caregivers.
In recent years, the Older Americans Act has enabled a specific program along with federal dollars for states to support family caregivers. The executive office on aging was awarded $800,000 over a three-year period by the U.S. Administration on Aging and Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services to establish aging and disability resource centers. The goal of these centers is to create access to a single source of information and assistance for individuals and caregivers navigating the array of long-term care services. Sites will be developed to centralize and streamline access to medicare, medicaid, aging network, disability, and other public and private long-term care resources. The sites also were meant to centralize access for individual and family caregivers.
Furthermore, the executive office on aging executes the caregiver's resource initiative project. The objectives of this project are to:
(1) Promote self-advocacy by developing community leaders and the tools to continue to nurture caregiver support groups, policies, and programs for continuity and sustainability;
(2) Build coalitions, which have included the establishment of the Hawaii Caregiver Coalition and the Hawaii Family Caregiver Network;
(3) Strengthen communication and community-wide support by publishing the Family Caregiver newsletter, maintaining the executive office on aging's caregiver website, and initiating support groups statewide; and
(4) Implement the Brookdale Foundation's RAPP Statewide Project by initiating support groups, establishing grandfamily coalitions, and organizing educational opportunities for grandparents raising grandchildren.
State policy requires the executive office on aging to be the lead agency to serve all adults sixty years of age and older and their family caregivers. As authorized by the U.S. Administration on Aging and chapter 349, Hawaii Revised Statutes, the executive office on aging is responsible for ensuring information and access to opportunities and services for its constituents.
The legislature further finds that people who need the assistance of family caregivers typically have complex, chronic medical conditions and functional limitations. As a result, they require services from many parts of the medical and long-term care system. Unfortunately, coordination of information and services within each system, and between these systems, rarely occurs. Eligibility requirements, service complexity, and fragmentation are the top barriers to coordinating caregiver support programs with other home and community-based services.
The legislature further finds that family caregivers and their loved ones must have accessible, affordable, readily available, high quality, comprehensive services and policies that are coordinated across all care settings.
The purpose of this Act is to provide for the coordination and development of family caregiver support services and policies statewide.
SECTION 2. Chapter 349, Hawaii Revised Statutes, is amended by adding a new section to be appropriately designated and to read as follows:
"§349- Family caregivers; coordination of resources. The executive office on aging shall implement a system to coordinate federal, state, county, and community resources and policies that will sustain family caregiver contributions for long-term care support for families providing elder and grandfamily care by:
(1) Integrating family caregiver support with the Aging and Disability Resource Center demonstration project;
(2) Building community capacity and combining limited resources through continued leadership in the Hawaii Caregiver Coalition;
(3) Coordinating statewide support for grandparents and other relatives raising children whose biological parents are unable to do so;
(4) Establishing and maintaining protocols and standards for federal and state caregiver services administered by the state and county agencies on aging;
(5) Establishing and maintaining the alignment of caregiver support objectives of the office's long-term care advocacy division with the planning, resource development, grants management, and evaluation functions of the office;
(6) Analyzing the long-term care needs of older adults and the capacity of family and informal caregivers to help them remain safely in their homes;
(7) Advocating, mobilizing, and coordinating employer and community resources to enable and augment family caregiver support; and
(8) Developing a long-term living and family caregiver educational kit."
SECTION 3. There is appropriated out of the general revenues of the State of Hawaii the sum of $230,000, or so much thereof as may be necessary for fiscal year 2006-2007, for the executive office on aging to coordinate a statewide system of family caregiver support services and policies.
SECTION 4. The sum appropriated shall be expended by the department of health for the purposes of this Act.
SECTION 5. New statutory material is underscored.
SECTION 6. This Act shall take effect on July 1, 2006.
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INTRODUCED BY: |
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