Happy Friday, everyone, and welcome to MALN Opinion+, a space for opinions, where we talk about current events and questions the Latino community is curious about!
This week we’re joined by Norma Mora, the community liaison for Caregiver Homes here in Massachusetts. Caregiver Homes is an organization that works to assist people who have dedicated their time to being a home caregiver for a person or family member in need.
Caring for a relative at home can be a physically and emotionally taxing job. Along with that caregivers can often feel isolated in their struggle, like nobody is there to help them or that others won’t understand what they are dealing with.
In a November 2018 report, AARP shared that over 7 million Latinos in the United States provide care for a family member at home. Additionally, 38 percent of Latino caregivers are between the ages of 18 and 34 making them the youngest group of caregivers in the country. This, Paired with the covid-19 pandemic hitting young minority groups the hardest in terms of job loss has put a lot of caregivers in an extremely tough situation.
Organizations like Caregiver Homes play an important role in facilitating the at-home care process through sharing information, providing financial support, as well as creating a space for caretakers to feel like someone has their back in times of stress. Norma explained to me a bit about how this works during our interview,
“We (Caregiver Homes) want to keep people cared for at home and out of care facilities. Nobody cares like your family does, our mission is to find who a caregiver is, their situation, and if they qualify for our services…We provide financial assistance, many caregivers lost their jobs or also work from home so we provide a lot of support through our care teams helping them by providing resources like how to find the right bed, the right shoes, bars for the shower. A lot of caregivers also do not know how to connect with professionals like the primary care physicians or anyone who might be involved with the patient so our care teams are right there to support the caregiver and facilitate that journey”
