[Congressional Record Volume 148, Number 135 (Tuesday, October 15, 2002)]
[Extensions of Remarks]
[Pages E1872-E1873]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                         DR. MICHAEL W. PARKER

                                 ______
                                 

                         HON. EARL F. HILLIARD

                               of alabama

                    in the house of representatives

                       Tuesday, October 15, 2002

  Mr. HILLIARD. Mr. Speaker, I rise today to share with my colleagues 
in the United States House of Representatives a story of Dr. Michael W. 
Parker, Sr., a citizen of the state of Alabama who has served our 
country with bravery, commitment, and distinction in the armed services 
and continues to serve us with his work as a professor and researcher 
at the University of Alabama at Birmingham.
  Members of our military are unique individuals who put their lives on 
the line to protect the very freedoms that many of us take for granted. 
Since September 11, 2001, we have been reminded of the perils of war 
and the dedication of those who fight to protect us. I want to remind 
the House that many of our veterans return to civilian life and do 
great deeds for our country in various professions.
  Mr. Speaker, Dr. Parker, LTCR, DSW, BCD (Board Certified Diplomate) 
has been named a John A. Hartford Foundation Faculty Scholar in 
Geriatric Social Work and serves our community in many ways. He is a 
National Institute on Aging (NIA) Post Doctoral Fellow from the 
University of Michigan. He is currently on faculty at the University of 
Alabama Medical School, Center for Aging, Department of Geriatrics and 
Gerontology & the University of Alabama, School of Social Work. He is a 
research scientist with the U.S. Air War College in Montgomery, AL. Dr. 
Parker is the founding Chair of Aging Veterans and their Families which 
is part of The Gerontological Society of America, and serves as the 
Primary Investigator on NIA and Department of Defense funded research 
related to health promotion, successful aging, and spirituality.
  Dr. Parker has also been recognized for his classroom abilities and 
is a recent recipient of the University of Alabama's Frank R. Egan 
Award for teaching and exemplary practice. His military honors include 
the Order of Military Medical Merit and the Legion of Merit. Dr. Parker 
is dedicating his civilian career to addressing the long-term care 
needs of our society.
  Today, I would like to discuss the Military Parent Care Project on 
which Dr. Parker and his colleagues are working. I want to describe the 
family care plans that the United States military uses to assist 
surviving family members, a modification of that plan that Dr. Parker 
is researching to include older and disabled loved ones, and how this 
may lead to better planning for caregiving for all American families.
  Mr. Speaker, all military personnel with dependent family members are 
required to complete, prior to deployment, a family care plan that 
makes provision for the medical, legal, and spiritual welfare of 
surviving family members in the event the service member--soldier, 
sailor, airman, or Marine--does not return. Dr. Parker believes that 
the composition of the family care plan must be expanded to make it an 
intergenerational family care plan to assist in the care of the aging 
parents of military personnel who do not return from service to our 
country.
  We know that the demographic changes in the U.S. population have 
significant implications for all of us, including military families. 
Women, the traditional caregivers, have increasingly entered the 
military. It is my understanding that women--wives, daughters, and 
daughters-in-law--provide seventy percent of home care. Forty percent 
of women providing care to aging relatives are also providing care to 
children at the same time because of delayed childbearing. In addition, 
nowhere are the effects of parent care more apparent than with senior 
military members and their families because they typically live long 
distances from their aging parents.
  Mr. Speaker, I think most of our colleagues would agree that it is 
imperative that we all work with our aging and disabled loved ones to 
plan for future care needs. This is particularly important for at-risk 
military personnel. Otherwise, care might not be provided the way we 
would like.
  Under the sponsorship of the John A. Hartford Foundation and The 
Gerontological Society of America, Dr. Parker and his team have 
developed tools to help active duty military careerists complete a 
family care plan that includes aging parents. They have used focus 
groups of military personnel and experts from the fields of medicine, 
law, theology, and caregiving to create and test a Parent Care 
Readiness Assessment Instrument. This tool assists a family in 
identifying and prioritizing specific tasks associated with providing 
care to their aging family members.
  As you know, Mr. Speaker, this Congress has conducted many hearings 
exploring the long-term care crisis in this nation. A long-term care 
crisis at the family level can thrust military and civilian family 
members into a bureaucratic maze of trying to make successive care 
arrangements in a badly fragmented long-term-care system. The nation's 
patchwork of nursing homes, foster homes, adult day centers and home 
health care agencies offer a dizzying array of often-unsatisfactory 
options. Practical help is needed so that a formal family care plan can 
be developed that could be put into place even if an adult son/daughter 
was not present to help execute the plan. Our Parent Care Readiness 
Assessment Instrument can serve as the first step toward this end.
  They have also developed a two-hour educational workshop covering 
four key aspects of preparing an intergenerational family care plan. 
They are medical, legal/financial, social/

[[Page E1873]]

familial, and spiritual/emotional plans. Families are also given access 
to an interactive Website with caregiver information, and compact disks 
with caregiving information and additional resource material.
  Mr. Speaker, we do not have the all the results yet, but Dr. Parker's 
project has tested these products and workshop on military careerists 
and spouses at midlife. This research includes the use of a control 
group and a post-assessment of the test and control groups. Many of 
these tools have the potential for assisting millions of American 
families prepare for unforeseen events.
  It is impossible to fully prepare for the consequences of an act of 
terrorism like 9/11. However, military families have already taken 
steps through our family care plans to reduce the long term 
consequences of any trauma, whether it is a result of military service, 
auto accidents, or other health crises. The civilian population could 
adopt this approach. Planning for such contingencies with the addition 
of the intergenerational component could become one of our individual 
contributions to homeland security and our family's security.
  Mr. Speaker, helping civilian families take the same precautions as 
military personnel who enter harm's way has great potential for 
millions of American families. I believe that this good work taking 
place in the great state of Alabama will lead to better preparation for 
those unforeseen events in our lives and to protecting the future of 
our aging parents. I am proud to bring this important development in 
the field of aging and the distinguished work of Dr Michael Parker to 
the attention of my colleagues in the House.

                          ____________________