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ARCH Respite Research Initiative

ARCH has advanced efforts to enhance the respite evidence base to assist with sustainability, promote continuous quality improvement, and help grantees and others translate research into best practices. Through the Respite Research Initiative, ARCH is working to collect, synthesize, disseminate, and stimulate research in the field of respite and family caregiver support.

The ARCH Goals for Advancing Respite Research include:

  • Improve access to and quality of respite services
  • Identify aspects of respite services and models that make them exemplary
  • Evaluate and replicate promising respite services
  • Translate research findings into practice and policy
  • Identify additional possibilities (e.g., funding opportunities for research)

The Expert Panel on Respite Research, convened by ARCH in collaboration with the Administration for Community Living from 2013-2015, was key to helping advance ARCH's mission to build an evidence base for respite. The final report of the Expert Panel, a Research Agenda for Respite Care: Deliberations of an Expert Panel of Researchers, Advocates and Funders, included recommendations and a research framework for conducting focused research on respite care.

To help implement the Expert Panel's research agenda, ARCH built a Respite Research Consortium to link interested researchers and funders to engage in respite research that follows the Expert Panel's research framework.  If you are interested in keeping current with respite research, please subscribe to the Respite Research Consortium Updates.

A virtual Respite Research Summit was held on September 29 and 30, 2020, to evaluate the progress made by ARCH and the Consortium and to identify next steps. Interested researchers, providers and advocates are encouraged to subscribe to Respite Research Consortium Updates to follow its progress. Following the Summit, a summary report with findings, Advancing Respite Research, was published.

ARCH also collaborates with the BREAK (Building Respite Evidence and Knowledge) Exchange, which is an international group of researchers, respite providers, agencies, and individuals who are committed to building a culture of evidence-based respite care. With this collaboration, ARCH will be linking respite services we identify as Innovative and Exemplary through a rigorous national application and selection process to interested researchers worldwide.

On October 28, 29, and 30, 2024, from 1:00 pm to 4:30 pm ET each day, ARCH will host the capstone event for its Committee for Advancement of Respite Research, the 2024 virtual Respite Research Summit.  During the Summit, we will explore the CARR initiatives undertaken over the last several years, including the development of a Framework for Measuring the Value of Respite, Recommended Common Data Elements for Respite Research, and tools for ensuring cultural and linguistic competence in respite research. We will highlight cutting-edge national, state and local respite and caregiving research and evaluations that align with and elevate this work, and will feature real-life examples of research-ready innovative and exemplary respite services from around the country.  Read more and register for the event.

Committee for Advancement of Respite Research

In September 2020, ARCH announced the formation of the ARCH Committee for Advancement of Respite Research (CARR) that is charged with advising ARCH and identifying additional goals for respite research. This initiative includes: examination of how to improve access to and quality of respite services; identification of aspects of respite services and models that make them exemplary; encouragement of evaluation and replication of promising services; and translation of research findings into practice. 

The purpose of the CARR is to advance a respite research agenda that supports activities and innovations to develop an evidence base for respite care and related services. The CARR is comprised of research scholars and evaluators, advocates, and foundation representatives. The Committee prioritized three areas in which to identify and undertake tasks to advance a respite research agenda:

  1. Define and measure the value (cost-effectiveness) of respite
  2. Recommend common data elements (CDE) for respite-related research to allow for meaningful comparison of data across and
    between studies, between respite models, between study populations across age, disability, culture, and caregiving circumstances, or over time.
  3. Expand culturally and linguistically competent research with diverse populations by providing the necessary information and tools to the research community.

During the tenure of the Committee, a number of important products were published.

Subscribe to Respite Research Consortium Updates

The ARCH Respite Research Consortium links interested researchers and funders to engage in respite research that will strengthen the evidence base for respite services. If you are a researcher, funder, or student, or a respite provider interested in program evaluation and respite research and advancing a respite research agenda, please subscribe to the ARCH Respite Research Consortium mailing list to receive timely and informative respite and caregiving research updates, including the latest information about new research studies, current literature reviews, data sources, funding opportunities, upcoming events and new report releases. Read past issues.

As a research consortium member, you may also share information about your respite research study on the ARCH website in order to recruit family caregivers, respite providers or other study participants. Read more.