Essential Together Learning Bundles
As part of Essential Together and to support organizations to implement policy guidance that welcomes essential care partners into health and care facilities, we have curated learning bundles. These learning bundles centralize tools and resources from organizations across the country that support the safe reintegration of essential care partners.
These tools and resources are arranged into seven learning bundles that follow the respective Policy Guidance for the Reintegration of Caregivers as Essential Care Partners elements to help organizations identify and prepare essential care partners and then support them as they enter health and care facilities.
The tools and resources are open source, which means you can use and adapt them to fit your local context.
Identify and Prepare Essential Care Partners
Develop mutual expectations of responsibilities
- Ensure patients understand what an essential care partner is and are welcomed to identify their own essential care partners.
- Establish process and roles to connect essential care partners with a staff point-person for consistent coordination.
Establish pre-entry preparation for essential care partners
- Ensure consistent and ongoing information and education for essential care partners regarding safety protocols required for entry.
Establish staff education to understand roles and safety protocols for essential care partners
- Ensure there is education and clear communication for staff regarding the role and value of essential care partners and their safe re-entry.
Establish a rapid appeals process
- Communicate a clear and transparent appeals process to patients and essential care partners so concerns can be quickly raised and addressed.
Supporting Essential Care Partners as they Enter Health and Care Facilities
Establish a clearly communicated screening process
- Implement a consistent screening process with relevant, evidence-informed protocols and questions.
- Ensure clear communication regarding what is expected at screening.
- Create an opportunity for different methods of pre-entry screening (for example online in advance) and provide information on expected safety protocols.
Establish caregiver IDs for essential care partners
- Institute processes that clearly identify essential care partners.
- Connect these processes with supportive education for safety protocols and personal protective equipment processes.
- Provide an opportunity for ongoing updates to ensure essential care partners are aware of current safety protocols and processes.
Other related material
- Essential Together Huddles: Connecting for Peer-to-Peer Learning
- Safely Re-entering Long-Term Care Homes During COVID-19: A Resource for Essential Care Partners (February 2021)
- Essential Together Tool: Identifying Strengths and Improvements to Reintegrate Essential Care Partners (online version)
- EVIDENCE BRIEF: Caregivers as Essential Care Partners
- Policy Guidance for the Reintegration of Essential Care Partners
