Joint Meeting of the RAISE Family Caregiving and Supporting Grandparents 

Raising Grandchildren (SGRG) Advisory Councils

January 25, 2022; 12:30 pm – 4:30 pm (ET)

The RAISE Family Caregiving Advisory Council and Supporting Grandparents Raising 

Grandchildren (SGRG) Advisory Council convened for their first joint full council meeting to lay 

the foundation for the development of a National Family Caregiving Strategy. The joint council will 

use recommendations outlined in their separate but related Reports to Congress. The following 

are key highlights of the meeting:

Call to Order and Welcome Remarks

Alison Barkoff, Principal Deputy Administrator at the Administration for Community Living (ACL)

called the meeting to order and thanked Council members for their hard work and reminded 

everyone of the enormity and timing of the next phase of the Council’s work to develop the 

nation’s first comprehensive National Family Caregiving Strategy. The strategy will outline 

concrete actions to be taken by federal, state, and local governments as well as other relevant 

stakeholders to address the needs of caregivers and those they care for nationally. Greg Link, 

Director, Office of Supportive and Caregiver Services at ACL provided a detailed breakdown of 

the day’s agenda and what can be expected in the months ahead. He announced that ACL will 

post a call for nominations to replace the current non-federal members on both Councils. 

Honorable Xavier Becerra, Secretary of the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) 

thanked members for completing the two parallel reports submitted to Congress last year; and 

thanked the partner organizations and individual participants for their support. He began by 

sharing his own caregiving journey; from caring for his father who lived with him until his passing 

in 2020, to caring for his mother who currently lives with him and his family, reminding them that 

he views himself as a pledged member due to the critical and impactful nature of their work; 

something that resonates with him personally as a caregiver. He explained to members that the 

nation and its more than 50 million caregivers are counting on them to develop a National 

Strategy as the first step in strengthening the caregiving infrastructure and reminded them about 

the importance of doing it right. Borrowing from his father’s favorite slogan, Secretary Becerra 

charged Council members - “I want you to get up and go to work on this strategy because we 

want it to be a good day for a lot of families moving forward in the future.” 

Roll Call and Introductions

Council members engaged in an interactive exercise to allow members to give feedback on how 

the National Family Caregiving Strategy could positively impact the family and kinship caregiving 

dynamic. Council members were asked to provide a brief introduction followed by the completion 

of the following statement: Once the National Family Caregiving Strategy is completed, family 

and kinship caregivers will be able to...The feedback produced a trove of valuable quotes that 

can be incorporated into the strategy. 

Presentations

Findings from Stakeholder Listening Sessions

Pamela Nadash, Ph.D. an Associate Professor for the Department of Gerontology at the 

University of Massachusetts, Eileen Tell, a Fellow with the LTSS LeadingAge Center at UMass 

Boston, and Siena Ruggeri, Program and Policy Coordinator for Community Catalyst provided 

some insight on how they were able to gather data from several stakeholders and key informants 

over the course of 160 hours of conversations in the past year. Their presentation provided 
details on the research design and methodology used in identifying experts at the State and Local 

levels that could help identify a roadmap for National Strategy objectives. Documented findings

were gathered from ten Key Informant sessions and six listening sessions with stakeholders.

Panel Presentation & Discussion - Family Caregiver Employment and Financial 

Preparedness: Considerations for the National Strategy

Members and participants also listened to a panel presentation and discussion on family 

caregiver employment and financial preparedness impact on the national strategy by a group of 

presenters that included Dr. Jennifer Olsen, CEO, Rosalynn Carter Institute for Caregiving; Greg 

Olsen, Acting Director, New York State Office for the Aging; Monica Moreno, Senior Director of 

Care and Support, Alzheimer’s Association; and Dr. Katherine S. Judge, Professor of 

Psychology, Cleveland State University – Financial Literacy and Preparedness. The above 

presentations included Q/A sessions.

The National Family Caregiving Strategy: Status Update and Next Steps

Finally, ACL’s Sarah Markel presented two key updates that have direct impact on the strategy 

development work namely: specific actions from twelve federal agencies totaling 282 which does 

not represent everything that has been received to date, and the strategy development process. 

These submissions cover both caregivers and grandparents. She explained that the strategy will 

include pieces of information members are familiar with such as the reports the two councils 

submitted to Congress last year with a combined total of 48 recommendation, ACL Request for 

Information (RFI), and walked them through some of the crucial steps they will be addressing in 

their respective subcommittee meetings in the months ahead to ensure the final product is a 

national strategy that reflects their hard work and commitment. 

Next Steps & Adjourn

Before adjourning the meeting, Mr. Link reminded members that the plan is to have each of the 

subcommittees focus on one of the five chapters of the strategy and assured them that they will 

have the right amount of support to help them do their work well including but not limited to 

providing them with useful prep materials ahead of time and referring them to archived 

information. He encouraged them to watch out for emails that will be sent to them the next day 

from the RAISE and SGRG mailboxes with a doodle poll containing dates and times to sign up to 

be on as many subcommittees as their individual calendars will allow. He then adjourned the 

meeting.