Resources for Caregivers

Posted by benniefinch on July 23rd, 2026 Posted in: Blog, Trainings

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Caregiving has come up in many ways with our work at NNLM. We are hearing this theme in our focused outreach work, in classes such as Connecting Older Adults to Health Information, have spotlighted this topic in the NNLM Reading Club, and presented on this topic in conferences. In this blog post, we celebrate the 63 million caregivers in the United States and share resources for and about caregiving.

Caregiving comes in many forms, and you may not even realize that you are a caregiver.

Rosalynn Carter, former First Lady and Founder of the Rosalynn Carter Institute for Caregivers, began bringing attention to caregivers more than 5 decades ago. Caregivers are often unseen and unsupported by our current systems, but we will likely all be affected by caregiving at some point in our lives.

“There are only four kinds of people in the world–those who have been caregivers, those who are currently caregivers, those who will be caregivers, and those who will need caregivers.”    -Rosalynn Carter

 

In April 2026, George Strawley (NNLM Region 4) presented at the Public Library Association Conference on Empowering Libraries to Support Caregivers. This presentation was developed by George, Carolyn Martin (NNLM Region 5) and Bennie Finch (Region 7).

We provided some statistics about caregiving, resources for caregivers, and programming ideas that can support caregivers including some examples from NNLM Region 7 Members. The slides are available for download to review a variety of resources and ideas for supporting caregivers.

 

Some of the highlights

The 2025 report from AARP and the National Alliance for Caregiving called, “Caring in the U.S.” gives us a snapshot about caregivers.

63 million, 1 in 4 adults in the United States are caregivers 

This reflects a 50% increase since 2015. The same report states that those receiving care are at all stages of life but are primarily older adults and nearly half of those are 75 or older. Care recipients include family, friends, and relatives across all stages of life. The Top 5 conditions for care are aging, dementia and Alzheimer’s, mobility, cancer, and surgery and wounds.  Find resources to support many types of caregiving in the Caregiving Resource List (download) shared as part of the PLA Presentation.

While caregiving can be rewarding it is also linked to stress and health impacts, so it is important for caregivers to have resources they can use to support themselves as they care for others.

Resources for Caregivers

MedlinePlus:

• Caregivers
• Caregiver Health

Caregiving Toolkit from the National Institute on Aging has a variety of resources from health condition specific information to worksheets, infographics, videos and articles such as Taking Care of Yourself: Tips for Caregivers. Many resources are helpful to any caregiver.

Caregiver Stress, Office of Women’s Health

Programming Ideas

• Consider partnering with local agencies on programming, such as your Area Agency on Aging or Extension Services, who may have speakers on topics such as finances, healthy eating, and more.
• Host information sessions about caregiving and caregiver services
• Offer to be a place for a support group
• Host a Book Club with resources from the NNLM Reading Club
• Create a Book Display for National Caregiver’s Month in November
• Provide grab and go collection items that support caregivers
  

  

• Take a class with us – Connecting Older Adults to Health Information will be offered on July 29^th.
• Region 7 Members can borrow a Graphic Medicine Book Club Kit such as Can’t We Talk About Something More Pleasant?

References

https://www.aarp.org/pri/topics/ltss/family-caregiving/caregiving-in-the-us-2025/

Strawley, G., Finch, B., Martin, C. (2026, April 3). Empowering Libraries to Support Caregivers [Conference Presentation]. Public Library Association Conference, 2026, April 1-3, Minneapolis, MN.