A series of training videos specifically made for rural caregivers came out last month to a warm reception among service providers.
"These are amazing! Wonderful for quick on-point training or a 6-month refresher," said Mary Beth Westland, chief operating officer for Mat-Su Senior Services in an email to other caregiving agencies.
The project is the brainchild of Jennifer Garrison, who works in home- and community-based programs for Catholic Community Service in Juneau.
While at a Title VI conference last March, she got the idea of creating a set of videos that could meet the needs of rural caregivers in Alaska, "It was such a needed thing and I couldn't find any one that really pertained to what our rural caregivers need," she said.
She found a production company in Anchorage, Landsick Media LLC. She sent the company a list of the topics she wanted covered, and then the video producers came to Juneau last August to collect footage. It took the next few months to perfect the editing and narration to "make the magic," Garrison said.
The result is an 18-video series available free of charge at https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLh2VogePF8V9bIJAsmevb0HlLFXn-bqlA
The series includes short videos on topics such as toileting, feeding assistance and oral care assistance.
Garrison worked as a certified nursing assistant for 10 years, so she had ideas about what she wanted to convey. Catholic Community Service was able to receive two grants to make the training series possible. One was a federal public health workforce grant and the other was a Title III grant for caregiver support.
Garrison is happy the word is getting out about the video series. "I'm hoping it gets to all the people who need it," she said.
