Over 53 million family caregivers provide the care needed for older adults and people with disabilities to maintain their independence in the community. When caregivers lack necessary supports, their health, well-being, and quality of life suffer. The nation’s 2.3 million direct care professionals are critical as families and friends often need help to provide quality care for their loved ones — or they need a break from providing that care themselves. However, the paid direct care workforce is currently in crisis due to high turnover, challenges with recruitment and retention, and the need for ensuring competency and quality in the services provided. Meanwhile, the number of older adults and persons with disabilities needing assistance continues to grow.
Expanding volunteer opportunities can both increase the availability of direct supports for family caregivers and create a path for expanding the direct care workforce. To address that need, in 2019, ACL launched the Volunteer Community Care Corps (C3) project to develop innovative local volunteer programs to assist family caregivers, older adults, and adults with disabilities with nonmedical care to maintain their independence. C3 is operated by the Oasis Institute— and their partners, the Caregiver Action Network (CAN), USAging, and the Altarum Institute — through a five-year cooperative agreement with a specific appropriation and direction from Congress.
C3 supports family caregivers, both directly and indirectly with nonmedical assistance. For example, volunteers perform nonmedical tasks, such as running errands, helping around the house, providing technology support and companionship visits. Such support can help care recipients and family caregivers maintain their physical and emotional well-being, as well as improve the capacity for family caregivers to remain in the workforce. Volunteer nonmedical assistance does not replace the valuable skilled services provided by direct care workers but enhances the quality of care that they provide. Volunteers can also benefit, as the act of service has been linked to better mental and physical health and increases in satisfaction.
The 2022 National Strategy to Support Family Caregivers described volunteer training and development as a key mechanism strengthening services supports for family caregivers and care recipients. However, a recent report by the Oasis Institute found the projects funded by C3 in communities across the nation are aligned with and working to advance all five goals of the 2022 National Strategy.
Program Objectives and Accomplishments to Date
ACL’s primary objective for C3 is the continued advancement and expansion of the program’s model and expanding upon the following goals:
- Increase the number of community-based volunteer programs available to provide nonmedical care to older adults, persons with disabilities, and their caregivers at the local level.
- Decrease the number of older adults, persons with disabilities, and caregivers who need assistance at the local level but are unable to obtain help.
In the first five years of the C3 program, approximately 10,542 volunteers have assisted more than 34,400 older adults, persons with disabilities, and family caregivers through 109 sub-grants to community-based organizations across the country. From 2019-2024, the C3 program provided more than 185,541 hours of assistance to older adults and people with disabilities and their family caregivers.
In 2024, Oasis received a new $5 million grant for another five-year cycle to continue developing new volunteer programs.
Learn More
- Read the Community Care Corps Policy Brief: Program Impact and Alignment with National Strategy to Support Family Caregivers.
- Check out C3's Effective Elements Learning Libraryfor information about replicable and conceptual approaches to create impactful volunteer-based models.
- Learn more about C3-funded projectscurrently underway in communities across the nation.