In the Spotlight

The Family Care Navigatorsm

This month, we are proud to bring you an exclusive interview with Evie Christou, MSW, project manager of the Family Care Navigator, the terrific new resource developed by Family Caregiver Alliance's National Center on Caregiving.

California Caregiver: What is the Family Care Navigator?

Evie Christou: The Family Care Navigator is an online tool. It contains information about programs, agencies, across the country—50 states, plus DC. that either are specific to caregivers, or have a caregiving component. These are programs that are offered by government agencies or nonprofits.

CC: How do you envision its being used?

EC: Our wish is that this tool is going to be useful to informal caregivers—friends, adult children, partners—whoever it is that the care recipient calls family. It will give them specific information about programs in their areas that they can use to help in their role as caregivers. We've already had really good feedback from professionals around the country as well, that it's very useful to them, because it's the one place that compiles all the major caregiving support programs within a state.

CC: What was it like to develop the Family Care Navigator?

EC: It was a lot of fun. It also involved a lot of challenges. It involved the work and the creativity of a lot of people. And it took many steps from the wonderful direction of [FCA Executive Director] Kathy Kelly, having this great idea about creating a tool like that included many steps—the technical part, the research part, the writing, deciding the criteria for inclusion, what type of language are we going to use, what kind of a format—it was a monster of a project, and it was fantastic to work on it, and to see it developed. And to see the fact that it looks so good on our website. It was a lot of work!

CC: Sounds like it!

EC: And many people working for FCA contributed to this project.

CC: Who, specifically?

EC: Specifically: Kathy Kelly, Lynn-Friss Feinberg, Cara Goldstein, Amy Friedrich-Karnik, myself [Evie Christou], Melania Jusuf, Megan Krause, Bonnie Lawrence; and what would we have done without Mahi Sadeghi and our consultants, such as Carol Van Steenberg and our tech consultants?

CC: How did you determine initially that there was a need for this product?

EC: My goodness, you should listen to the calls that we get from across the country—and the types of questions that caregivers are asking. The great variety of questions makes it obvious the need is out there. I mean, people are really hungry for this information—for something very specific that really answers the specific question that they have—for example, how can I get paid to care for my mom who has Parkinson's disease. That's one question. So, what are these programs that will actually give you some financial assistance in becoming a caregiver?

Then, simple questions—"How do I go about finding a support group?" We'll tell you where to look. There is a great, great variety of questions in those calls and e-mails, and we realized that there is a lot of information online but there is nothing out there that answers the specific questions that caregivers have. So the Navigator responds to a great need. We let the caregivers be the experts on this: What is it that they're asking for? That's what we're going to find, and present to them.

CC: Is it available now?

EC: It's available now, it's online, we're thrilled; it's been live for about a month. We have great feedback from across the states and DC. The NFCSP (National Family Caregiver Support Program) people from many states have sent us really positive feedback about this tool. And great, great additional input—for example, "This is great, here's something else you might want to add to this."

And, of course, people call the NCC (National Center on Caregiving) from all over the United States with questions. So, for the ones who have internet access, I tell them while they're on the phone with me to get on the Navigator. I specifically tell them, "Go to FCA's website, go to the Navigator, click on your state. So what is your question, what are you looking for, okay, click on that category..." And they're very, very excited about it. It's gotten to the point where people want to hang up to go onto the Navigator! So it's really fantastic. And of course, we have a feedback tool on the website, and people can go on there and provide us with their feedback, and especially now, in the early stages of the release of the tool, we check that often. We're constantly looking to improve the navigator and add more programs.

CC: So, will there be updates?

EC: There will be updates—monster updates! As input comes in we incorporate it in real time. For example, if a Minnesota FCSP person calls in, and says "Oh, we have changed the contact information for this," we will immediately update it. We also hope to do formal updates once or twice a year, depending on resources and funding.

CC: Who funded the project?

EC: The Langeloth Foundation.

CC: And is there a new version on the horizon?

EC: That would be our preference, that there will be generations of this project. We're looking ahead, because we want—believe it or not, we want to improve it, although it's pretty much perfect! But we want to include even more programs. For example, right now, we don't have small programs even though some of them provide a really important service, just because they are only offered in a very small locality. But, for example, we want to include programs that offer services to diverse populations—such as rural communities. We do have some programs in there that specifically address diversity, but we don't have a lot of programs that address certain populations, just because they are so small and the criterion is that the program, to be included, has to be offered statewide or in multiple localities. These are the things we are looking to eventually include.

CC: Any other new features you'd like to add in the future?

EC: It would be great if we had more interactive features, where we could get real-time feedback from caregivers, sort of create an online community where caregivers from across the states could interact, those are things that would help. And of course, a great idea for this would be translating the Navigator into Spanish, for example, that would be fantastic. But, you know we can only hope that it will happen with additional funding.

CC: Well I just want to thank you for taking the time to speak with California Caregiver today.

EC: It's my pleasure to talk about the Navigator!

Click here to check out The Family Care Navigator!

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