Caring for Those Who Care, the DEC’s signature training curriculum, is a resource for health, social service providers, and aging professionals to learn about the unique needs of diverse family caregivers. Now, hosted on the SAGECare training platform, this curriculum has been refreshed and expanded, using findings from the DEC’s 2025 literature review on diverse family caregiving. The 2025 literature review along with SAGECare collaboration allowed the inclusion of LGBTQ+ people of color and direct care workers in the curriculum.
The training curriculum will equip professionals with insights into the lived experiences of the following populations:
- African American and Black Caregivers
- American Indian and Alaska Native Caregivers
- Chinese American and Korean American Caregivers
- Hispanic and Latino Caregivers
- LGBTQ+ Caregivers (With attention on LGBTQ+ people of color)
- Southeast Asian American Caregivers
- Direct care workers
60-Minute Overview: What This Training Covers
This 60-minute introductory session offers a first look at the refreshed Caring for Those Who Care curriculum, now hosted on the SAGECare platform. This session will introduce participants to the updated structure, content, and learning objectives of the curriculum, highlighting how new research, collaboration, DEC member organization expertise and community input have shaped the revised modules.
During this overview, participants will:
• Get a high-level introduction to the diverse caregiving communities represented in the curriculum and how their experiences are reflected throughout the training.
• Preview the core topics covered in the full modules, such as culture and identity in caregiving, health and well-being impacts, and organizational best practices.
• Learn about key themes and headline findings from DEC’s national caregiving survey and 2025 literature review, including updated insights on the experiences of LGBTQ+ caregivers of color and direct care workers.
• Receive information on how organizations can engage further with SAGECare’s full suite of modules and DEC’s caregiving advocacy toolkits, one-pagers, and community-specific resources.
Policy Toolkit: Turning Research into Action
To complement the updated training curriculum, the DEC has developed the Policy Toolkit: Advancing Equity in Caregiving that translates our latest literature review into clear, actionable guidance for state policymakers and community-based professionals. Organized around five pillars — Family & Friend Caregivers, Cultural Competence & Intersectionality, Community-based Care, Direct Care Workforce, and Data & Research — the toolkit turns key evidence into concrete policy and practice recommendations. Each recommendation is grounded in peer-reviewed studies and national reports, with citations included so users can easily access the underlying research.
Download the toolkit to access ready-to-use talking points, recommendations, and data that can strengthen equitable, culturally responsive systems of care for diverse older adults and the caregivers who support them.
The research and development of this training curriculum has been generously funded by The John A. Hartford Foundation.
Curriculum was co-developed with the expertise of the Diverse Elders Coalition Member Organizations: