Disability/Caregiver Support

Caregivers

Caregivers of persons with disabilities are those who provide care to a person requiring support due to disability. Note that not all people with disabilities need constant care.

While this can include professional or formal caregivers such as social workers, doctors and nurses, the focus of this report will be on informal caregivers which include spouses, children, grandchildren, siblings and foreign domestic workers hired by their families:

• Special note to two groups of family caregivers: Elderly caregivers caring for disabled adult children, disabled people playing caregiver roles
  • See The Survey on Informal Caregiving by MCYS
    • 20% of family caregivers providing care to elderly persons aged 75 years and above with functional limitations are themselves above the age of 65.
  • See A Profile of Older Family Caregivers by CARE and Duke-NUS
    • Older family caregivers are in declining health themselves but spend long hours (up to 60 hours per week) caring for their family member. More than half of family caregivers up to the age of retirement (55-65 years) are juggling long hours of both formal employment and caregiving.
    • More than half of family caregivers aged 70-74 years do not receive help from anyone else to care for their family member
    • Well beyond the retirement age, family caregivers are spending 50 to 60 hours per week caring for their older family member.

• [Is this landscape overly centred on ID/ASD??]

Short-Term Outcomes(skills, knowledge, attitudes)		Mid-Term Outcomes(behaviours)		Long-Term Outcomes(impact)		Social Impact
Respite care options are accessible to caregivers	→	Caregivers can easily access respite care	→	Caregivers are in physical health and psychosocial well-being	→	Caregivers can sustainably care for disabled care recipients to the best of their capabilities and capacities
Real and perceived barriers to regular self-care are reduced	→
		Caregivers have informal social support around them	→
				Caregivers are equipped with information and skills at different steps of the care journey
		Caregivers acquire reliable information and training to perform care	→
Access to touch points is reasonably accommodated to caregivers' needs	→	Caregivers can easily access touch points for information and skills
		Caregivers do future care planning	→
		Caregivers can access financial support	→	Caregivers can bear the financial costs of care

Click here to explore the Caregiver Support Theory of Change.

Key Statistics and Figures	Key Gaps	Knowledge Gaps
An estimated 210,000 people aged 18 to 69 provide care to a family member or peer.	Caregivers continue to be concerned about the need for respite care. They reported a lack of opportunity for respite, especially when care recipients require round-the-clock care. At the same time, relying on respite care options can create a sense of guilt.	[What is the number of informal caregivers caring for people with disabilities (e.g., % of PWDs who have caregivers), and their demographic profiles (age, SES, relation of care recipient to caregiver)?]
Caregivers are ageing and are becoming less and less able to care for their disabled kin; 70% of caregivers in Singapore (including those who care for the elderly and disabled) are above 40; 10% are between 60 and 69 years of age. Caregiving in Singapore (Sep 2011)	Caregivers expressed the concern that they require self-care. Stress from caregiving, along with increased time spent on care work affects caregivers' personal health and well-being. At the same time, self-care is not able to get on the priority list because caring for care recipient is perceived to be more important.	[Can we quantify how much financial schemes alleviate total expenses for caregiving? See Chia Ngee Choon’s op-ed for example]
37% of caregivers reported that they had been providing care to their care recipients for over a decade.  Caregiving in Singapore (Sep 2011)	Caregivers are worried about their future inability to care for their loved ones with disabilities.Caregivers of children with special needs are also concerned about the post-18 trajectory.
On average, caregivers provided around 6.8 hours of care per day in a typical week. Caregiving in Singapore (Sep 2011)
Close to 74% of caregivers were employed. Caregiving in Singapore (Sep 2011)
About 80% of caregivers received some form of support, be it from other family members (70%) and/or domestic helpers (14%). 21% of caregivers reported being the sole caregiver. Caregiving in Singapore (Sep 2011)
Over 1,600 people have tapped on respite services offered at selected day care centres and nursing homes. Usage of these respite services has increased by at least 50% between 2015 and 2017.