Editor, Gazette-Journal:
Like many communities across the country, the Middle Peninsula is experiencing a caregiver crisis.
As our population ages, family members and friends become unpaid caregivers providing in-home care for loved ones experiencing chronic conditions, mobility challenges, and dementia. Bay Aging is committed to supporting caregivers as well as aging and vulnerable populations.
To guide expansion of our current services, which include adult day care, active lifestyle centers, support groups, counseling, transportation, and Meals on Wheels, we partnered with the Martha W. Goodson Center at Riverside to hold community listening sessions and research caregivers’ needs and challenges across the Middle Peninsula/Northern Neck.
Here’s what we learned your needs are: more community-based and in-home respite care programs; increased awareness of existing programs, especially to new residents; more programs that help reduce social isolation; smoother transition from hospital t...