Caregivers Link – A start-up social venture with a vision to develop and build support, and in the long term create solutions and professional services, for informal caregivers and caregiving families.
Why Caregivers Link?
To address some of the many problems faced by those parents, partners, spouses, children, siblings and sometimes friends and extended family who take on the role of Caregiver to someone at home who needs help to lead their daily life, for long and sometimes life-long periods of time. This may be due to chronic or terminal illness, disability, or multiple other health issues.
Click here to sign up (just your name and email ID required) and join our mailing list. You are a link.
Caregivers Link began as an idea, a concept based on conversations with friends and family who were either caregivers, care receivers, or knew people in either of those situations. In 2010, we focused our efforts on understanding the situation caregivers face in India – and we began to network resources and communication focusing attention on informal family caregivers. Over the past year, we have found ourselves evolving in a direction where developing and offering critical support services of diverse kinds – for caregivers and caregiver families – appears to be a priority. This is also an area where massive gaps exist between need and availability of resources of all kinds.
Our website as you see it currently, reflects the way we began and progressed to reach this stage. We hope that what you read here will be a good indicator to you of the spirit behind this venture and some of the directions we are choosing to take.
We are looking for volunteers with internet access from across India . Email caregiverslink@gmail.com or get in touch with the team.
Link to the NEW Facebook group.
NEW! Click here to link to a Dementia Care information website in Hindi.
The ‘Resources’ section of this site is broadly categorised into three sections with multiple sub-sections each, covering different circumstances requiring care. One section is for the reference and use of persons who are caregivers the second section is for the use of persons who are receiving care and their caregivers, and the third section is the beginning of a listing of government bodies with schemes and interventions that could help caregivers and care receivers. There are resources that overlap between the two and have been mentioned more than once. The listing is a growing effort as we are still in the process of mapping and adding to the lists.
Take a look at a website set up recently by a caregiver in India on the subject of caregiving for dementia patients here.
“Isolation, a lack of resources, low energy and depression,
an inability to find a community of people willing to help me –
an increasing reluctance to leave the house or to meet other people.
People don’t like visiting the sick or the elderly,
which makes it harder for the caregiver who is often not able to leave them alone or reluctant to.
A lot of anxiety because one is so often the sole person with the patient
and scared of making a wrong decision.
A lack of helpfulness on the part of doctors and nurses.
They are inaccessible and unhelpful.”
(Asha Sen, caregiver)
“My work often takes me on out-station travel, and I fret about leaving her alone.
But she is not willing to let any governess or other help to stay at home.
She would rather depend on the neighbours.
I also have to manage all her savings and other investments
that my father had made.
She is unable to understand some of the complexities involved.
At times, all of this adds tremendously to my work related frustration, tiredness and anger.
Friends and colleagues are a help at times,
and I’m seeing someone of late,
and so there is someone to share all this with.
But all these individuals also have their own share of concerns,
including parents’ health.
So one is pretty much on one’s own most of the time.”
(Pawan Dhall, caregiver to his mom.)
Join the link and this online effort at communication and sharing which is an essential part of building this network.
Add to our listings of resources and build the database.
Share your feedback and comments – All comments on this site are moderated to avoid spam and to create a safe space for people to talk about things that are often difficult to discuss. Your comments will not appear immediately on the site but please do check back on your posts.
What will this website do?
This Caregivers Link website is meant to serve 3 purposes:
(1) Become a bank and check point of information on resources that caregivers can add to as well as access to use for the people they care for and also use to look after themselves … with reviews (including user reviews where ever possible and available).
(2) Be a virtual world where the caregiver community can share experiences, chat, look up news related to their role or related to the medical situations of people they are looking after.
(3) Carve out a space of visibility and voice in the virtual and the real world where people sometimes tend to forget that we take a caregiver for granted.
More About Us…