Teresa S. Dal Santo

Racial and Ethnic Differences in Family Caregiving in California

Abstract Family caregivers are the main source of long-term care for older persons in the United States. At the same time, cultural values and beliefs shape decisions surrounding who provides care and whether families use formal support interventions to assist the caregiver. The current article examines how the family caregiving experience differs among racial and ethnic groups in terms of caregiver characteristics, service utilization, caregiver strain, and coping mechanisms. Telephone interviews were conducted in English and Spanish with a random sample of 1,643 respondents in California who provide care to someone age 50 or over. Bivariate analyses showed evidence of ethnic differences in the demographic characteristics of caregivers, intensity of care provided, caregiver health, level of financial strain, religious service attendance, formal service utilization and barriers to formal services. Odds ratios showed that White and African American caregivers were about two times as likely to use formal caregiver services as were Asian/Native Hawaiian/Pacific Islander and Latina American caregivers. Implied by these findings is the need for further understanding of caregiver service needs among diverse racial and ethnic groups.

Building Organizational Supports for Research-Minded Practitioners

One of the biggest challenges facing human service organizations is the proliferation of information from inside and outside the agency that needs to be managed if it is to be of use. The concepts of tacit and explicit knowledge can inform an approach to this challenge. Tacit knowledge is stored in the minds of practitioners (often called practice wisdom) and the explicit knowledge is often found in organizational procedure manuals and educational and training materials. Building on this perspective, this analysis provides a preliminary definition of research-minded practitioners by explicating the elements of curiosity, critical reflection, and critical thinking. The organizational implications of developing a cadre of research-minded practitioners include the commitment of top management to support “link officers”, evidence request services, research and development units, and service standards. The challenges include the capacity to identify/support research-minded practitioners, promote an organizational culture of evidence-informed practice, redefine staff development and training, redefine job descriptions, and specify the nature of managerial leadership.

Who Is Providing Social Services to Today's Older Adults?

Abstract Characteristics of personnel who provide services to a rapidly growing and increasingly diverse population of older adults were examined through a statewide survey of Area Agencies on Aging and county adult and aging services departments in California. Substantial gaps were found in the professional education and training of current aging services personnel, with only 42% of adult protective service workers, 36% of case managers, and fewer than 10% of other personnel having masters degrees in social work. Key barriers to hiring aging services personnel included a lack of qualified and properly educated applicants, inadequate salaries, and insufficient numbers of ethnically diverse applicants. Results illustrate the lack of professional training among aging services workers and the need to develop programs and incentives for increasing the number of social workers with adequate knowledge and skills in aging services.

A Web-Based Approach for Helping Communities Become More “Aging Friendly”

This article describes an online conference and supporting Web site designed to help communities become better places in which to age. The “Creating Aging-Friendly Communities” online conference was designed to capture the emerging knowledge being accumulated by researchers, advocacy groups, grassroots organizations, and local governments across the country, and make it available to others who were interested in learning what they could do to make their communities more aging friendly. The article begins with a brief overview of the concept of “aging-friendliness,” followed by evidence regarding the effectiveness of online modalities as mechanisms for knowledge dissemination. It then describes the innovative conference format, examining the extent to which the conference goals were achieved. The article concludes with implications for online learning modalities in general and efforts to foster aging-friendly communities in particular.

Caregiver Service Use: A Complex Story of Care at the End of Life

ABSTRACT This study explored the impact of caregiving, service use, and unmet needs of caregivers of the dying and whether end-of-life caregiving differs from other types of caregiving. We hypothesized that end-of-life caregivers would have greater unmet needs before and after the death of their care recipient and that they would report lower levels of well-being than continuing caregivers. We looked specifically at the service use of caregivers whose care recipients died during the study period and whether or not such service use helped caregivers to manage end-of-life care. This study showed that, on average, end-of-life caregivers are older, more likely to be White, and provide care for individuals with greater Instrumental Activities of Daily Living (IADL) and Activities of Daily Living (ADL) needs and severe memory problems. In cross-sectional analyses, end-of-life caregivers experienced greater emotional stress, physical strain, and poorer health and used more supportive services than their caregiving counterparts. However, after controlling for other covariates in regression analyses, end of life care remained a predictor of only physical strain.

Boundary-Crossing Careers of Senior Human Service Administrators: A Cross-Case Analysis

Little attention has been given to the boundary-spanning capabilities of human service managers seeking to effectively manage the relationship between public and nonprofit sector programs. This exploratory study begins to identify those capabilities by documenting the boundary-crossing career trajectories of senior human service managers and directors in the United States and United Kingdom. The purpose of the study is to identify the lessons learned by senior managers as they reflected, in retrospect, on their careers in both sectors.