ABSTRACT
Geriatric social workers must often cope with the plight of an elderly couple—one of whom is ill, the other frail but still able to be a caregiver—who desperately want to remain together within their own community. The Natural Supports Program of Community Service Society identified the caregivers’ vital role in maintaining ill, elderly spouses at home and developed meaningful groups for them. This chapter demonstrates how such a group can be created and to propose that certified home health care agencies incorporate such groups into their regular programs. In hospitals with certified home health care programs, elderly couples can obtain well-planned and coordinated services to augment and support the usual caring people in their lives. The chapter describes the process by which a filial professional social worker recruited four couples from her home care caseload, and then used group work techniques to help them become the Caregivers and Spouses Group.
