NEWS

Laura Granberry, Director of National Initiatives, traveled to Montgomery, Alabama in April to present the Rosalynn Carter Leadership in Caregiving Award to the Alabama Department of Senior Services. The presentation was made to Commissioner Irene Collins, Executive Director of the Department, and Governor Bob Riley.

Alabama’s REACH Intervention Project, funded by the Administration on Aging, was implemented in four pilot regions of Alabama with two main goals - to develop and expand affordable, accessible, and culturally appropriate evidence-based service innovations to improve available services to support people with Alzheimer’s disease and their family caregivers; and to advance improvements in Alabama’s overall system of care for persons with Alzheimer’s disease and improve integration of the preferences and needs of people with Alzheimer’s disease and their family caregivers into Alabama’s long term care system and home and community based services.

The Alabama Department of Senior Services partnered with the University of Alabama’s Center for Mental Health and Aging, directed by Dr. Louis Burgio, one of the original REACH investigators. The State of Alabama made monumental advancements through this initiative, by improving Caregiver and Care recipient well-being, promoting the REACH intervention statewide, engaging active volunteerism, and proving the effectiveness of the REACH intervention in meeting the needs of people living with Alzheimer’s disease. Dr. Burgio and his staff received their award at the RCI's 2007 National Summit.

Governor Riley praised the staff of the ADSS for their work on this project, which provides important support for Alzheimer’s caregivers. He said, “This is about the person who is taking care of an Alzheimer’s patient - what can they do, not only to do a better job of caregiving, but be able to just function themselves, because there’s so much stress."

He added, “The person who gives the care really is under so much pressure over a period of years and this just teaches them how to handle it on a day-to-day basis.”

Commissioner Collins accepted the award with gratitude. “This caregiver award is especially meaningful to all of us that worked with the project, but especially those that helped to carry it across the state,” she said.

“This was a pilot project in four of our areas and then we carried it statewide, and under the leadership of Julie Miller and Letha Stuckey it has grown beyond what we thought the potential was.”

Mrs. Granberry presented the award at an April 15 press conference. She said, “What set this program apart and made it award-winning was that, while there has been a lot of research done on caregiving support programs, this program translated research sitting on a shelf to something that is useable in the community - something that really helps the caregivers . And now it’s a statewide program. No one else in the country has done anything on this scale.”