Does the Senior Companion Respite
Service Matter for the Health and
Well-being of Caregivers?

In 2014 the Corporation for National and Community Service (CNCS) launched an evaluation to assess the impact of the Senior Companion Program (SCP) respite services on beneficiaries and participants to inform policy discussion and strengthen the SCP respite service program. The evaluation included a baseline and one follow-up of caregivers who sought SCP respite service between July and November 2015. There are two reports based on the data collected from the caregivers who participated in the evaluation. The first report described caregivers’ demographic characteristics, health, and functional status of caregivers who sought SCP respite services as well as care recipients’ health and functional status and use of additional support services.

The second report, Does the Senior Companion Respite Service Matter for the Health and Well-being of Caregivers? had two primary objectives. The first objective was to describe the types of services caregivers received, how caregivers’ expectations for respite services align with the respite services they received, and their satisfaction with respite services. The second objective was to provide preliminary descriptive results on the extent to which there was a change in caregivers’ self-rated health and well-being following the start of respite services.