Caregivers Alberta

🎥💊 Now Available On Demand!

Missed our latest webinar, Your Community Pharmacist: A Partner in Caregiving? The recording is now live on our YouTube channel and ready to watch whenever it works for you. 📺✨

Hosted by Keith Johnston, Manager of Strategic Partnerships, and led by Amyn Kanjee, BSc Pharmacy (Hons), CDE, APA, Certified Asthma Educator, this engaging session explores how pharmacists and community pharmacies can be powerful, accessible partners in sustaining the caregiving journey. 🤝❤️

💙 Caregivers often juggle complex medication routines, changing health needs, and frequent interactions with the healthcare system. In this webinar, you'll learn how pharmacists can:

✔️ Simplify medication management
✔️ Enhance care coordination
✔️ Identify potential medication-related concerns
✔️ Support medication adherence
✔️ Provide trusted education and guidance
✔️ Improve health outcomes for both caregivers and care recipients
✔️ Become a valuable member of your care team
✔️ Equip you to ask the right questions about medications and care
✔️ Connect you with services available in your community

▶️ Watch now: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nA0nivwE6yg

Your Community Pharmacist: A Partner in Caregiving Learn how pharmacists help caregivers simplify medications, enhance...

This Pride Month, Caregivers Alberta honours the unpaid family and friend caregivers across our province who are part of the LGBTQ2S+ community. Your care, resilience, and love strengthen lives in ways that are often unseen, and we are deeply grateful for the difference you make every day.

Your visibility matters and we remain committed to fostering inclusive caregiver supports across Alberta for all.

Happy Pride Month 🌈

Stronger Connections. Real Impact.

In the first quarter of 2026, Caregiver Connect supported 128 caregiver referrals, ensuring more caregivers were connected to help when they needed it most. A key contributor to those referrals was Calgary West Central PCN, with 17 referrals.

Each referral represents a caregiver navigating complex situations while managing care, emotions, uncertainty, and the many demands of daily life.

Through Caregiver Connect, they're not doing it alone. They're gaining:

Guidance through the system
Emotional support
Connections to the right resources

This is what early connection looks like. This is what meaningful support and lasting impact look like.

If you support caregivers—or are one yourself—connect with Caregiver Connect today.

🔗 caregiversalberta.ca/caregiver-connect/

He doesn’t call it caregiving. He calls it love.

He’s doing everything he can to care for his wife.

Supporting her each day. Managing routines. Helping her navigate moments of confusion and change.

All while his own health is beginning to decline—quietly, in the background, the way caregivers’ needs often do.

There is no shift change. No backup plan. No clear relief.

No weekends off. No pause button. Just a deep commitment to the person he loves and a responsibility that never truly leaves his shoulders.

Just the steady question he carries with him:
If I can’t keep going, what happens to her?

Across Alberta, countless family caregivers face similar worries every day while balancing their own health, responsibilities, and well-being.

💜 Family caregivers carry everything. Help ensure no one carries it alone. Become a monthly donor: caregiversalberta.ca/donate

🚨 Final Reminder: Registration is closing soon for our upcoming webinar, Your Community Pharmacist: A Partner in Caregiving!

Join us on Wednesday, June 17 from 12:00 PM – 1:00 PM to explore how your community pharmacist can support caregivers in navigating medications, managing complex care needs, and building confidence throughout the caregiving journey.

We are pleased to highlight our guest speaker, Amyn Kanjee, BSc Pharmacy (Hons), CDE, APA, Certified Asthma Educator, a community pharmacist with over 30 years of experience in patient care. Amyn will share a practical, patient-centred perspective on how pharmacists help caregivers better understand medications, manage demanding routines, and feel more supported in day-to-day care decisions.

🎤 Hosted by Keith Johnston, Manager, Strategic Partnerships

✨ Don’t miss out — register today: https://www.eventbrite.ca/e/your-community-pharmacist-a-partner-in-caregiving-tickets-1981597328954?aff=oddtdtcreator

Caregivers Alberta Caregivers Alberta is a nonprofit organization that focuses on the well-being of family & friend caregivers by providing supports and programs.

At our 25th Anniversary Celebration on May 12th, Caregivers Alberta proudly hosted its second bi-annual Caregiver Alberta Awards Ceremony, celebrating the remarkable individuals and organizations who continue to elevate awareness of caregiving across the province. These recipients demonstrate outstanding dedication to strengthening community connections, advancing collaboration, and bringing greater attention to the realities and challenges of unpaid caregiving in urban, rural, and remote communities throughout Alberta.

We are proud to recognize this year’s award recipients:

• Dr. Jasneet Parmer – Winner of the Research and Healthcare Award
• Petro-Canada CareMakers Foundation – Winner of the Corporate Award
• Vickie Boechler – Winner of the Volunteer Award
• Heather Lucier – Winner of the Caregiver Advocate Award
• The Order of the Eastern Star – Winner of the Philanthropist Award
• Bryan Gilks – Winner of the Community Builder Award

Thank you and congratulations to all of our winners. Your dedication, leadership, and impact continue to make a meaningful difference for caregivers across Alberta, and we are sincerely grateful for the time, care, and commitment you bring to this important work every day.

It’s not just caregiving. It’s everything around it.

Appointments. Medications. Paperwork. Daily routines.

All while balancing work, family, and everything else life demands.

It means calling pharmacies between meetings. Juggling calendars that never seem to align. Answering messages while cooking dinner.

It means tracking costs most people never see—transportation, parking, supplies—paid out of pocket, quietly absorbed.

It means sacrificing time, energy, sleep, and moments meant for themselves.

And even when life moves forward, they rarely fully step away—because they’re still the one who gets called.

And it’s all unpaid.

💛 Family caregivers carry everything. Learn more/support caregivers by clicking here: https://www.caregiversalberta.ca/donate/

📍 Peer Support Session for Family & Friend Caregivers

Join us at the Airdrie Public Library for a meaningful peer support gathering created for family and friend caregivers to connect, learn, and share experiences in a supportive space.

🗓️ Wednesday, June 10, 2026
🕙 10:00 a.m. – 12:00 p.m.
🏛️ Airdrie Public Library — Program Room 5
📌 805 Main St S #100, Airdrie, AB T4B 3M2

This session will feature honest, lived-experience conversations from:

Heather Lucier, Caregiver Ambassador and 2026 Caregivers Alberta Caregiver Advocate Award recipient, will share her personal experience of caring for her daughter through ALS. Heather offers a grounded, real-world perspective on what it means to show up day after day as a caregiver, including the challenges, the small moments of connection, and what she has carried forward from that journey.

Johnna Lowther, Author and Director of Programs and Services at Caregivers Alberta, who will gently guide us through the topic of end-of-life conversations—something many caregivers find themselves navigating without a roadmap. Drawing from her book Through the Eyes of Dementia and her work alongside caregivers, Johnna will offer practical insights, reflections, and space for questions.

Together, the session will create an environment for caregivers to step out of daily demands, share what they’re carrying, and connect with others who understand. It’s a chance to feel less alone, exchange ideas, and leave more connected with the community around you.

Everyone is welcome to attend in person if you’re able to join us at the library.

💻 Virtual option:
If you are unable to attend in person and would like to join online, please contact Matt Salopek, Communications Coordinator at Caregivers Alberta at [email protected] to receive the Zoom link.

Caregivers often carry the weight of the world - and in Alberta, 1.2 million people are doing it unpaid. Many feel alone. Burned out. Invisible.

That’s why a Caregiver Kiosk in Airdrie matters so much.

Started by Bryan Gilks, who cared for his mom for 15 years, the kiosk began as a tiny resource station in the local library. Today, it’s a full peer‑support circle where caregivers can talk freely, be understood, and find community.

“It just made sense that we have a hub that was informational, social, recreational,” says Bryan.

Volunteers like Kate Shaw say the impact is undeniable: “People tell us they couldn’t have done it without this group.”

Caregivers Alberta is now looking to set up more kiosks in communities across Alberta.

A simple idea, rooted in lived experience, is reshaping how caregivers find community and support.

📢 Are you a caregiver in a rural community southeast of Calgary?

Caregivers Alberta and the Calgary Rural Primary Care Network (CRPCN) want to hear about your experiences accessing respite services.

Your feedback will help identify strengths, gaps, and opportunities to improve support for caregivers in rural communities.

📝 Complete the survey by July 31, 2026:
🔗 Bit.ly/RuralRespiteSurvey
📞 Or call 1-877-453-5088

There is also an opportunity to participate in a focus group taking place in May and June 2026. Simply indicate your interest when completing the survey.

If you are a caregiver, please consider sharing your experiences and helping shape the future of respite supports in your community. 💙