Employer Engagement
Lifespan Respite grantees and their partners are reaching out to employers to provide information and discover how they can help support employed family caregivers with respite resources. This page provides some useful strategies/tools that states are using for these initiatives.
ARCH Recorded Webinar: Tools for Employer Engagement in Respite and Caregiver Support. Watch the webinar and access the Employed Caregiver Survey.
In this webinar, participants learned about the Employed Caregiver Survey developed and supported by the University of Wisconsin Division of Extension. The importance of understanding the impacts of caregiving on both employees and employers; the benefits of understanding and supporting caregiving employees; and the purpose of the Employed Caregiver Survey as a tool to understand and act on these needs were discussed. Additional information was shared on how to bring the Employed Caregiver Survey to your organization to use in engaging employers.
The webinar also shared information from the NE Lifespan Respite Network about their employer engagement efforts and the results of their initiative.
Lifespan Respite grantees, including New York, have made use of the Employed Caregiver Survey shared by Kristen Litzelman, PhD, University of Wisconsin-Madison, School of Human Ecology and Division of Extension during this webinar. If you would like more information about the survey, please feel free to contact her at Litzelman@wisc.edu.
STATE TOOLS
Colorado
- Colorado Respite Coalition's Caregiving-Friendly Workplace Toolkit. This toolkit provides information about the impacts of caregiving on workers and companies, as well as strategies for Colorado employers to create workplaces that help support caregivers.
- State Strategies for Engaging Employers in Lifespan Respite, Presentation at the 2014 Lifespan Respite Grantee Learning Symposium, Nashville, TN
Facilitators: Meghan Baskett and Lynn Robinson, Easter Seals, CO and Peggy Spaulding, CO Lifespan Respite grantee
Massachusetts
- PPT Presentation, Elevating Respite through a Corporate Outreach Model: Employee survey wields important respite needs, 2016 National Lifespan Respite Conference, Denver, CO (joint presentation with Nebraska below)
Nebraska
- Nebraska Lifespan Respite Network website on Employer Engagement. Contact Kim Falk, UNMC-MMI who serves as the statewide Lead Respite Coordinator for the employer engagement initiative for more information and resources.
- Nebraska Lifespan Respite Network, Nebraska’s Working Caregiver Survey, Employer Data Report, 2021 Year End Report
- PPT Presentation, Elevating the Needs of Family Caregivers: Why Respite Should Be a Concern to Employers, 2016 National Lifespan Respite Conference, Denver, CO
New York
- Fact Sheet: New York State's Working Caregivers
- Caregiver Guide for Businesses, Updated 2022
- New York State Legislation requiring the provision of guides containing best practices for retaining employees who are informal caregivers; provides that such guide shall be available on the websites of the state office for the aging, the department of labor and the department of state.