Minnesota

MINNESOTA’S SUPPORT NETWORK

• Family Caregiver Support Program

Offers: In-home, out-of-home, and facility-based respite options; other services include access assistance, caregiver training and education, caregiver consultation/coaching and supplemental services, such as home modifications and assistive technology.

Funded by: National Family Caregiver Support Program under Older Americans Act Title III E; administered by the Minnesota Board on Aging and locally by area agencies on aging.

Eligibility: Caregivers must be age 18 or older; care receivers must be age 60 or older and have impairment in two or more activities of daily living for respite/supplemental services and/or a cognitive or mental impairment that requires substantial supervision.

• Elderly Waiver Program

Offers: In-home and adult day respite options; other services include caregiver education, training and consultation, environmental modifications, supplies and equipment. Personal care, meals and transportation also may be provided.

Funded by: Medicaid home and community- based services waiver; administered by Minnesota Department of Human Services and locally by managed care organizations and county social service or public health agencies.

Eligibility: Caregivers must be age 18 or older; care recipients must be a minimum of age 65 and meet nursing facility level of care criteria.

• Alternative Care Program

Offers: In-home, out-of-home (e.g., adult foster home, assisted living facility) and adult day respite options; other services include caregiver education, training and consultation, environmental modifications, supplies and equipment.  Chore, personal care, meals, and transportation also may be provided.

Funded by: State general funds; administered by the Minnesota Department of Human Services and locally by managed care organizations and county social service or public health agencies.

Eligibility: Caregivers must be age 18 or older; care recipients must be a minimum of age 65 and meet nursing facility level of care criteria.

• State Respite/Community Service Grants

Offers: In-home, out-of-home (e.g., adult foster home, assisted living facility), and adult day respite options; other services include education, training and consultation.

Funded by: State general funds; administered by the Minnesota Department of Human Services and locally by providers in partnership with area agencies on aging and other stakeholders.

Eligibility: Caregivers must be 18 years of age or older; care recipients must be a minimum of 65 years and be at risk for nursing facility placement.

• Grandparent and Other Relative Caregiver Support Programs

Offers: Respite care and other support services, including access assistance, designed to address the needs of grandparent and other relative caregivers of children. See www.gu.org/factsheets.asp for details on Minnesota programs.

Funded by: Older Americans Act Title III E and other sources.  Grandparent and other relative caregiver support services are administered by the Minnesota Board on Aging and locally by the Minnesota Kinship Caregiver Association.

Eligibility: Grandparent and other relative caregivers must be a minimum of age 60 and caring for a child age 18 or younger to receive services in the Family Caregiver Support Program.

CONSUMER DIRECTION

Consumer direction is a philosophy that accommodates people’s needs and preferences by offering them maximum choice and control over services they use. You Decide Your Help is Minnesota’s new consumer-directed service initiative under which the state’s caregiver support programs offer individual budgets for the purchase of services, including respite, and permits caregivers and care receivers to hire and manage their own workers. Spouses and family members may be paid to provide services.

LEGISLATION

• S.F. 456 (Enacted 2001): Medicaid waiver recipients with mental retardation and related conditions may receive respite care in intermediate care facilities for people with mental retardation and related conditions.
• MN H.F. 376 (Enacted 2002): Expanded the availability of caregiver support services within the state’s lon- term care delivery system.
• MN S.F. 433 (Enacted 2003): Expands Alzheimer’s disease training for family caregivers.

Sources: National Association of State Units on Aging, e-mail survey of State Family Caregiver Support Program contacts, Washington, D.C., June 2005; National Center on Grandparents Raising Grandchildren at Georgia State University, Research—Fact Sheets, Atlanta, Ga., 2005; Feinberg, Lynn Friss, et al., The State of the States in Family Caregiver Support: A 50-State Study, Washington, D.C.: Family Caregiver Alliance, National Center on Caregiving, 2004; Generations United, National Center on Grandparents and Other Relatives Raising Children, State Fact Sheets, Washington, D.C., October 2003; National Family Caregivers Association, Prevalence and Economic Value of Family Caregiving: State-by-State Analysis, Kensington, Md., 2000; U.S. Census Bureau, Census 2000.

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