When first starting out, many caregivers don’t realize what they’re going through. They’re unaware of the resources out there for them, averse to asking for help, or simply not discerning the scope of the work they’ve taken on.
Sylvie Gilbert Fowlis, the Executive Director of Lennoxville and District Community Aid, says the organization’s mission as a whole is to provide aid and services to elderly people so that they can stay in their homes as long as they see fit. Community Aid has been providing services like Meals on Wheels, transportation, and blood pressure and foot care clinics for elderly and disabled people for 40 years. For the last 15 years, and especially in the last two, Gilbert Fowlis says that caregiving has become more recognized for its role in supporting seniors and/or disabled people outside an institutional environment and for the scope of the physical and emotional labour of individual caregivers.
Community Aid for caregivers
By Lawrence Belanger, Local Journalism Initiative
