Effects of Cash and Counseling on the Primary Informal Caregivers of Children with Developmental Disabilities

摘要

Because parents and other relatives provide vital, unpaid personal care to children with developmental disabilities, promoting the well-being of these informal caregivers is an important policy objective. The paid supportive services that children receive in addition to unpaid care could profoundly affect the informal caregivers who help them most. This study assesses the effects of consumer direction on the experiences and well-being of the primary informal caregivers of children who participated in Florida's Cash and Counseling demonstration. Instead of Medicaid home and community-based services (HCBS) waiver benefits, the demonstration program, Consumer Directed Care (CDC), provided a monthly allowance and let parents hire providers and manage the other services and goods their child needed.