Heritage Area Agency on Aging is supporting family caregivers with a new series of classes to help them during the pandemic.

Community Engagement Coordinator Harrison March says “Powerful Tools for Caregivers” is a series of weekly courses to empower family caregivers with skills and resources to combat social isolation as the pandemic continues. March says being a family caregiver can be stressful already, but COVID-19 concerns add a new dimension to that stress, “The pandemic has put a lot of concerns in everybody’s mind about our proximity to one another. You want to make sure you’re maintaining a safe distance when possible, masking when possible, but that may mean it’s harder for people to visit the loved ones that they care for. The personal feelings of anxiety that can be caused by that risk are through the roof for a lot of people. It’s added a lot of  stress to those normal things like popping in to say hello or help them out with something quickly.”

March says courses will be conducted virtually starting next month and is open to anyone qualified as a family caregiver. Registration deadline is this Friday. Find details here.

Heritage AAA serves seven eastern Iowa counties including Washington, Iowa and Johnson.