Here are some NHCAW celebration ideas aimed specifically at potential consumers:

• Launch a city-, county-, or state-wide ribbon-wearing campaign promoting NHCAW. Avoid using colors already closely associated with various causes, such as red for HIV/AIDS awareness and pink for breast cancer education. Consider yellow, the color of sunshine.
• Organize a resource fair and a seminar series for your community's informal caregivers with information about the resources they can turn to for respite and support.
• Host an open house, which is a great way to bring new people into your office and tell them about the services you offer.
• Provide community and religious groups with free literature and videotapes on home care aide services.
• Visit residents of retirement communities and provide them with general information about home care aide services and tips for finding and financing the highest quality care.
• Construct NHCAW bulletin boards or informational booths at your local hospitals, shopping centers, and health departments with general information about home care and helpful resources for potential consumers. Try to feature quotes and drawings from home care patients as well as input from providers and family members.
• Organize a silent auction to raise community funds for elderly supportive care services.
• Ask local corporations and public utility companies to print and insert home care aide information in their November bills.
• Distribute brochures, fliers, and posters about your agency or the assistance provided by home care aides to local libraries, churches, pharmacies, retail outlets, etc.
• Provide videos describing home care aide services to local video stores with "free video" community service racks.
• Arrange for your home care aides to provide a day of free services at a local homeless shelter.
• Arrange for your staff to welcome telephone callers with a special message promoting NHCAW, and record a special home care aide week greeting to play for callers who are placed on hold.
• Ask local cinemas if they will display a slide containing your NHCAW message on theater screens between movies.
• Ask local retail outlets and hotels if you may place a NHCAW message on their marquees.
• Show appreciation for staff and volunteers

Inject some spirit into your organization’s workplace and boost employee morale by organizing special NHCAW activities for your staff and volunteers. During this week-long celebration, as well as throughout the year, it's important to let your staff know how much you appreciate their commitment to improving the lives of their clients. Here are a few suggestions:

• Post a message in your company's e-mail system and on its paycheck stubs or envelopes thanking your staff and wishing them a happy home care aide week.
• Honor your home care aides with special gifts, such as T-shirts, coffee mugs, pens, pins and bags bearing the NHCAW logo.
• Construct an in-house bulletin board profiling each of your employees and volunteers.
• Plant a tree, bush, or flower in honor of each home care aide who has provided five or more years of service.
• Use the downloadable print advertisement found in Sample Materials to Get You Started to honor your entire paraprofessional team in targeted newspapers and magazines.
• Place a public service announcement (PSA) with your local TV and radio stations announcing NHCAW and thanking your agency's volunteers.
• Host a "Home Care Aide of the Year" awards event. Present the honoree with a special plaque and an extra vacation day in November.
• Host a breakfast, luncheon, picnic, or banquet honoring your home care aides and volunteers. Invite patients and their families, public officials, and your board of directors to come and show their appreciation.
• Conduct an employee raffle with free meals donated by area restaurants.
• Ask patients and their family members to sign a giant "thank you" card for home care aides.
• Feature a series of articles about the outstanding contributions of home care aides in your organization's newsletter.
• Honor patients and their families

The NHCAW celebration also serves as an opportunity to honor and assist the people who need your organization's support and appreciation most-patients and their families. Letting patients know you care helps them through the challenging times. Here are some unique ways to show support and appreciation for your patients and their families:

• Sponsor a series of basic first aid and infant and adult CPR classes for family members and friends of patients receiving home care aide services.
• Wish patients and their families a happy home care aide week by sending them a small bouquet of flowers or balloons. Ask a local florist or funeral home to donate the items.
• Develop NHCAW "fun sheets" (for example, home care aide crossword puzzles, coloring pages, and story games) that staff can give to children during home visits.
• Help families create "stress gloves" by filling latex gloves with colored playdough. Encourage them to squeeze their gloves whenever they are anxious, upset, or in pain.
• Organize a Thanksgiving celebration for patients and their families.
• Coordinate a "caregiver's night out," during which agency staff and volunteers sit with patients while caregivers get together with other caregivers for an evening away from home.
• Honor one of the most outstanding family caregivers you know with a "Caregiver of the Year" award.
• Host arts-and-crafts activities for pediatric patients and their siblings. Try personalizing aprons, pillow cases, or placemats with paint pens or "puffy" paints.
• Garner support from public officials

As a home care provider, you are in a unique position to inform Members of Congress, state legislators, mayors, and city council members about how their legislative decisions affect the delivery of home care aide services to their constituents. NHCAW is an ideal time to approach your national, state, and local leaders with your concerns.

The Official Proclamation/Resolution

The official proclamation/resolution is a useful tool for attracting public attention to your NHCAW activities. Ask your state and/or city officials (such as governors, mayors, and city council members) to designate November 10–16 as NHCAW.

In many cases you should be able to obtain official recognition directly from a public official through a proclamation. However, if the official must seek approval from an entire legislative or executive body before declaring November 10–16 as NHCAW, then a resolution is required. Because this can be a lengthy process, it is important to get an early start on these activities. Following are the steps to follow when requesting a proclamation or resolution. A sample proclamation is included with these materials.

Step #1: Contacting the Official(s)

When contacting an elected official, speak with the staff person who handles special events and determine if the official can issue a proclamation independently or if you need to seek approval through a resolution from the entire executive or legislative body. If a resolution is required, target the official who is most supportive of home care issues and ask him or her to introduce your resolution before the entire body.

Whether you are requesting a resolution or a proclamation, it is important for you to provide your contact with an explanation of the purpose of NHCAW and how a proclamation/resolution would aid in promoting its celebration. In most cases you will be instructed to fax or mail a written request.

You may solicit a proclamation from as many elected officials in your community as you wish, so don't limit yourself to just one local leader. As public officials frequently collaborate on commemorative efforts, it may be possible to obtain a proclamation signed by a group of leaders from throughout the community.

Step #2: Submitting Your Request

Send a written request on your company's letterhead with a sample proclamation/resolution attached. Provide background material about your organization, highlighting the importance of home care in your community. Indicate how many providers are in your area and how recognition of this week would enhance their morale and efforts to educate the public. Specify the date by which you need to receive the proclamation or resolution. If you are interested in having the leader present the proclamation/resolution at a formal ceremony, provide details of the event.

Step #3: Following Up

Shortly after sending in your request, contact the person you are working with in the official's office to confirm that he or she received the information and can accommodate your timeline. Public officials are inundated with requests such as yours, so it is essential that you track the status of your proclamation/resolution throughout the process.

Step #4: Showing Your Appreciation

When you receive a proclamation or resolution, send a thank you letter that expresses your gratitude and encourages the leader(s) to participate in your NHCAW activities. At the end of the celebration, send a second letter of appreciation to all the people who assisted you.

Step #5: Contacting the Media

To maximize awareness of NHCAW, inform the media of the official recognition you receive. If the proclamation or resolution is signed in public, make certain that you contact the media and arrange to have a photographer and/or videocamera person present.
Following is a list of additional ways to reach your public officials and enlist their support both during NHCAW and after. Regardless of the tactics you use, it is important to be familiar with the political process and schedule your activities accordingly. Pay particular attention to the election cycles and legislative schedules of your public officials.

• Host an annual legislative breakfast to hear legislators' concerns and to have the opportunity to voice your perspectives on home care aide issues.
• Sponsor a NHCAW luncheon or banquet honoring national, state, and city legislators who have actively supported home care aide initiatives.
• Invite your legislator(s) to address home care aides, or to answer their questions, at a public forum. Legislators are receptive to visiting places where they can meet with large numbers of constituents, so consider holding this event at a local hospital, hotel, or convention center.
• Launch your own "home care telephone tree" or letter-writing campaign. Ask employees, volunteers, and patients and their families to call or write to their national, state, and local leaders about the importance of home care aide services. Provide participants with telephone numbers, talking points, sample letters, addresses, and the correct formats for addressing legislators.