When Caregivers Alberta started a social prescribing program for caregivers, the organization turned to volunteer Bryan Gilks to spread the word.
Gilks has hosted caregiver meetings at the Airdrie Public Library since 2023, the year after his mother died. The meetings give caregivers opportunities to learn about topics relevant to caregiving, such as social prescribing.
Gilks, who was his mother’s full-time caregiver and a long-time host of community meetings for caregivers and care recipients, says social prescribing is not always obvious.
“I didn’t really think about social prescribing on its own,” he said, reflecting on how he was not aware his own efforts could be considered social prescribing.
“I was just doing social prescribing.”
In social prescribing, health-care professionals refer patients to community organizations to help reduce their social isolation. Those organizations then help individuals determine what support they need.
Social prescribing initiatives exist in every province, according to the Canadian Institute for Social Prescribing, a national collaborative.
But while seniors have long been the focus of social prescribing, more attention is now being paid to how it can also benefit caregivers.
“Social prescribing was recognized as a powerful and unifying approach to addressing caregivers’ non-clinical needs and alleviating caregivers’ burden,” a recent report by the institute says.
New projects
Caregivers are people who provide unpaid support to family and friends who are sick or have disabilities. By some estimates, half of Canadians will be unpaid caregivers at some point in their lives.
Many caregivers struggle with social isolation. Caregiving responsibilities can take a toll on their mental and physical health, yet caregivers often prioritize the health needs of the people they support over their own.
For its report, the Canadian Institute for Social Prescribing evaluated a recently concluded two-year pilot project for caregiver social prescribing.
The project supported four provincial caregiving organizations to either begin or enhance existing caregiver social prescribing programs. The four participants were Caregivers Alberta, Family Caregivers of B.C., the Ontario Caregiver Organization and Caregivers Nova Scotia.
B.C., Ontario and Nova Scotia’s organizations have since committed to extending their projects for another three years. Caregivers Alberta is instead focusing on a project to support caregivers who are caring for individuals transitioning to new settings.
‘Warm handoff’
For Caregivers Nova Scotia, the funding received in the pilot enabled the organization to implement social prescribing in 10 clinics. The organization incorporated referral forms into those clinics’ electronic records, making it easy for health-care professionals to make referrals.
The organization wanted to increase health-care providers’ awareness of caregivers’ needs, says Lyn Stuart, who led the social prescribing program at Caregivers Nova Scotia.
The goal was to “create a better system where caregiving recognition and referral becomes a more normal and integrated part of health care,” she said.
“We hear all of the time that people just wish that someone [would] ask them how they were doing,” said Stuart.
At the same time, she says, many health-care providers want to help caregivers, but do not know how.
“We’re seeing a lot of strain on our health-care system,” she said. “Our clinicians seem quite happy to have a warm handoff, another support [for caregivers],” she said.
Amy Coupal, CEO of the Ontario Caregiver Organization, says her organization’s experience shows social prescribing for caregivers benefits the whole health-care system.
The organization connected with 185 caregivers during the first two years of the pilot project. Of those, about a third said it led to the person they care for avoiding non-urgent emergency room visits or hospital admissions. Half of the caregivers also said it reduced their own non-urgent emergency room visits.
“The impact of social prescribing is twofold,” Coupal said.
This echoed a finding in the institute’s report. “Supporting caregivers before they reach a crisis improves health outcomes for both caregivers and their care recipients,” the report says.
For example, in B.C., 12 per cent of caregivers in the social prescribing program said it reduced their visits to their primary care provider.
However, the report says there is not enough evidence to show whether, on a national level, social prescribing reduces caregivers’ medical appointments.
“[S]ubstantial proportions of caregivers” reported no change in emergency room visits, the report says.
Greater recognition
In B.C., Wendy Johnstone, director of programs and innovation at Family Caregivers of B.C., says caregivers are recognized more by the health-care system than they were years ago.
There has been a “real positive shift,” said Johnstone, who has cared for many relatives. “We never want the caregiver to be the next patient.”
B.C. was an early adopter of social prescribing for caregivers, with Family Caregivers of B.C. starting its caregiver social prescribing program in 2017.
During the recent pilot project, the organization created a tool for caregivers to determine their own needs, ranging from health needs to help with personal finances. Staff from Family Caregivers of B.C. then met with caregivers to create a personal plan to respond to those needs.
“It really put the caregiver at the centre of the assessment and helped them design something that was going to work for them as a caregiver and for their own well-being,” she said.
Johnstone says there is still work to do to ensure caregivers’ varied health needs are properly recognized. But she says she is glad to see more attention on social prescribing’s role.
“It’s long overdue,” she said.
