Va Caregiver Program Who Qualifies How It Works

You're talking mostly referencing here the comprehensive caregiver program aspect of the caregiver program. So let me address that first. The comprehensive program consists of veterans applying to request a caregiver support person in their home. And that can be somebody that's usually a family member, but it can also be a friend or someone else that is willing to commit to that obligation and that support to the veteran long-term. And when you say long-term, Who makes the decision to on who is qualified to be a caregiver for the veteran. Well, the caregiver is chosen by the veteran. So if it's me, I can pick my uncle Dan, I can pick my housekeeper, I can pick my veterinarian, my wife if she's not interested, it can be anybody. It can be anybody that the veteran chooses. It's veteran directed, veteran centered, and it's managed by the veteran. Our role in that is to assist the veteran and then to assist the caregiver once that person is in place so that they can provide the most consistent and comfortable support to that veteran in their own home. Are there any restrictions on who can be a caregiver to a veteran? The only restrictions would be related to the person's ability to provide the care that they're being requested to provide. So, for instance, if somebody... is limited physically themselves and then they're going to want to be helping their husband and he's also not able to get around so that wouldn't be a good fit. So we would have to take a look at the capacity of the caregiver to provide the care that is being expected. Okay, I understand. So let's say you've got a warfighter that is wheelchair bound and maybe the spouse is also wheelchair bound and has additional issues, more or less able-bodied than the veteran, then there may be an issue. But as long as it's an able-bodied person who has a normal intelligence level, can read and write and cares about the veteran, That's pretty much it. That'll qualify. That pretty much qualifies, yep. Outstanding. When did the caregiver program come into existence and right now how many caregivers are there across the country? Two good questions. I'm not sure I can answer that. The exact date of the... It's just last year. It really started rolling out in 2012, as I understand it. 2011, it was actually implemented, and then they gave us a time period of about a year. Everyone needed to be on board by March of 2011. So we had to have somebody in place. At that point, we got our training and our staff up to speed nationally. Okay. And then from that point forward, we started accepting caregiver applications. I couldn't give you the exact date on that, but once we started accepting those, then it would be up to the individual caregiver support coordinator for each VA area to review those applications and then to talk with both the veterans and the caregivers, make sure that they knew what they were getting themselves into, and then to move forward in processing those applications and getting them completed through the system so that they were moving through the, what's the word? The process. The process. So then for final approval, each area is different. Obviously, we're in a fairly small area here. I expect that we'll have 20 caregivers by the end of this year, if not a few more than that, in place with the comprehensive program. Okay. So just to kind of shorten it up, the abridged version looks like this. About March of 2011, on high, out there in D.C. or Virginia, wherever the main office is for the Veterans Administration, they said, hey, we're going to roll out this program, initiated it, all the Veterans Administration administration hospitals across the country got hopping and popping, making it happen so they could get a coordinator into their facility, and that would be you here in Northern Nevada, correct? And then from there, they started accepting applications from veterans for their caregiver, and then you went into the vetting process and setting up the training for the caregiver in that home. Exactly. Yes. Okay. That's a good summary. Yes. Okay. And the training, each caregiver I know has to go through a few days of training. How difficult is the training and what does the training focus on? Well, the training isn't terribly complicated at all. It's basically that most of the caregivers that are providing the care are already in the process of providing that care before we ever talk to them. So they're really the experts, and we're just working with them, meeting them where they are to support them in what they're already doing for the most part. Our caregiver training that is required consists of a review of some basic requirements. transferring people if they need to be transferred, PTSD issues if they have that issue is one of the concerns that they're going to be providing care for. And all of that is covered within a booklet, a training booklet that has been developed and implemented through the Easter Seals organization. There's three ways to get training for a caregiver. Probably the easiest and most often utilized is having that training booklet sent to the home along with this DVD. They go through the training material, the workbook on their own. And then if they have any questions, they can always call their caregiver support coordinator or they can call Easter Seals directly. Most of the caregivers whiz right through that. They read through the booklet. There is a, I don't want to call it an examination at the end of it, but a review, I'd say, of the caregiver materials. They complete that review, a couple pages of review, and then they mail that back into Easterseals. Easterseals takes a look at that just to make sure that they understood the material in the book, and then they let us know that they've completed that training. The other two ways to complete the training, one is if they really feel like they need to do it in person, we can make arrangements for them to go to a location where other caregivers are receiving that training outline, and they can do it in a group with other caregivers going through the process. And how long is the actual in-house, the physical, in front of a teacher training take? That takes about eight hours. Okay. It's a day-long training. And really, it provides for some support and a connection between the caregivers with other folks going through the same thing. And a good time to tie in with the caregiver coordinator. Well, the caregiver coordinator doesn't actually present that material. But I do, for instance, when we provided that training in person, I do come down, I introduce myself, and provide some feedback about what we're doing here locally. locally to the caregivers. We have a real regular contact with our caregivers in any case. So if they have questions about the caregiver program or issues related to the VA generally and they need some support, I'm more than happy to help them out with that. So I have a pretty good relationship and get to know the caregivers anyway. Right. Then, before I forget, the third way to complete that training would be online. They give them a, they mail in the same booklet, and then they go online, they get a passcode, and they're able to complete it online, and then Easterseals gets a final okay that they completed that version online. So wham bam, thank you, ma'am. You can either get the discs mailed to you, take the test, send it to Easterseals. You can either do an in-house training, and that's with a teacher and the whole chalkboard thing, or you can do it online, get graded, and that's how you get your go for the situation, for the test. That's a good summary. Okay. Hey, Boone, I had a question for him. Okay. This is a shock to you. That's the first time I've ever opened my microphone and asked a question. We're still on air, aren't we? Yeah. Outstanding. It's amazing. Look at that. The engineer is talking. Mr. Silent Sand, please talk to us. I had a question for Byron. Who can be a caregiver? Say you have a veteran in the area who has no family, no other support group. Let me field the question. Anybody the veteran says, I want that person to be a caregiver, but this is what we're going to get into. It has to be a veteran from the current era, from the current war. Okay, but say you have somebody out in the community who wants to be a caregiver. Do you accept them and then match them up with a veteran who doesn't have somebody? That's a really good question. We get that quite frequently from people that would like to fill that position. And the answer by and large is no. This isn't a job that you're applying for. This is generally something that the caregiver has decided that they need the support in the home. They wouldn't be living in the home if they weren't getting that support by and large anyway. So they usually have somebody in mind and it is initiated by the veteran. It's not initiated by... someone from the outside saying, you know, I want to volunteer my time. I want to help somebody out. How do I apply for that? That doesn't exist. Good question. I hadn't even thought about that. But typically from the guys I'm talking to in the community, it's a warfighter who comes home, doesn't have anybody but maybe a mom or a dad or a cousin or a sister. There was a young warfighter missing his leg. Last time I was at Walter Reed before they shut it down. And his sister was his caregiver. Most cases, it's going to be a spouse. But I hadn't thought about that just as an employee. Because I was driving down Mill Street one day and I realized that there was a facility on the side, one of the homes there, that there were several gentlemen that were warfighters that were living there on their own in an assisted living center, basically. Right. That basically all they had was the staff there. And if they decided they wanted to move out of that center and be independent, who would they get to be their caregiver? Who would they have as a caregiver since they were here on their own if they didn't want to be in this assisted living center? So that's what, you know, maybe a food for thought for a future expansion, possibly. Yeah. Well, and you're covering two different elements of the caregiver program. One is that as a general caregiver, and this gets away from the comprehensive aspect of it, which you just touched on, the comprehensive program is set up specifically for veterans discharged after 9-11-2001, after the current conflict. And the reason for that, the rationale is that Veterans that were discharged before that from other conflicts have long since dealt with the needs related to their service-connected injuries that require a caregiver or caregiver support. And I can hear some guys out in the audience right now, Vietnam era, Korea era, World War II, guys from Somalia, on and on and on, because let's not forget, even the Balkans, we had guys injured in the Balkans, Kosovo and whatnot. If you're talking about prior to the current war, this what they call GWAC, Global War on Terror, before that, there is another program. It's not called the Caregiver Program. It's called Aid and Attendance. Is that correct, Byron? That is a program. And it's similar, but it's not exactly the same. Right, and not everybody qualifies for that either. Right. So there are a lot of different – elements to making sure that you're providing the right documentation. And I would refer anybody that wants to access the aid and attendance to work with a veterans service officer. Don't go to somebody that's saying, you know, I'll do it to help you out. If they're charging for that support, then that's actually illegal. Right. But put the kibosh on that. Hey, I hate to cut you off, but we got to go to break.