Guiding Lights: New Support For Triangle Caregivers

Online, December 12, 2010 (Newswire.com) - Guiding Lights: New Support for Triangle Caregivers

Guiding Lights is a private nonprofit organization offering a comprehensive array of services to support family and professional caregivers.

Recent surveys have shown that caregiving for people with serious, ongoing healthcare needs is most often provided by their family members. The large and growing population of private caregivers needs a place to go for information, training, and moral support. Most importantly, and often missing, each caregiver needs assistance finding solutions for their specific situation. Guiding Lights Caregiver Support Center fills this need.

Guiding Lights services include a life management program for individuals living with dementia, a skills lab (sponsored by Triangle After Care) to train caregivers to care for loved ones' physical needs, a lending library of resource materials (sponsored by Heartland Home Health and Hospice), a sharing suite to facilitate free meetings between caregivers and industry professionals, a referrals specialist, care coordination, support groups, and educational seminars.

Professional caregivers also benefit from training in areas such as serving people living with dementia.

The Guiding Lights Awakening program is designed to revitalize the lives of individuals with Alzheimer's disease. All of the life-roles that have served to define people in their pasts are often forgotten or ignored as their Alzheimer's progresses. Awakening, through cognitive assessments, interviews, and family and/or friend consultations identifies appropriate activities, such as sports, music, volunteering, gardening, crafts, teaching, painting, reading, dancing and much more that were once a vital part of these precious individuals' lives. Participation in such serves to restore self-worth, to decrease negative behaviors, and to allow, once again, personal contribution to life.

And, Guiding Lights will offer corporations caregiver support services as a benefit to their employees.

Julie Falconer serves as Director of Programs and says, "I am so proud to be a part of this collaborative effort and to be able to bring joy to people who live in frustration and desperation because they cannot get the help they need to provide adequate and appropriate assistance to their loved ones. Guiding Lights is for each and all of them!"

Through her experience caring for her mother who suffers from dementia, Stacy Milburn, Referrals Specialist, knows firsthand the challenges faced by caregivers. "What a significant difference it would have made in our struggle with mom's Alzheimer's to have someone answering our many questions, providing a managed care plan based on her individual needs, steering us through the complexities of long distance caregiving, and offering emotional support throughout the process. This is exactly what Guiding Lights is providing the Triangle community."

"Our mission is to be the comprehensive support center for family and professional caregiving," said Nicole Bruno, Executive Director. "Offering the very best resources and means of support to all local family and professional caregivers, we seek to diminish the fear, doubt, and stress that accompanies this very important role in which many of us are called to serve."

For more information, contact Nicole Bruno at [email protected].

About Guiding Lights Caregiver Support Center

Guiding Lights Caregiver Support Center is a private nonprofit organization serving residents of Wake, Durham and Orange Counties in North Carolina. Based in Raleigh, Guiding Lights offers a comprehensive array of services to support family and professional caregivers. www.guidinglightsnc.org.