You're carrying this.
Who's looking after you?
When someone you love starts to need more, everyone asks how they are. Almost no one asks about you. In a family illness there are two patients — and you're one of them.
How heavy is it right now?
Touch what fitsOne honest question. Pick the one that sounds most like your week — there's no wrong answer.
A private reflection, not a diagnosis. If you're in crisis, call or text 988 (Suicide & Crisis Lifeline), anytime.
familycaregive in 15 seconds
- You are the second patient. Everyone asks how they are. Almost no one asks about you.
- One honest question. How heavy is it right now? Nothing leaves this page.
- The hardest part is saying it. Three gentle ways to bring it up. Tap one to copy.
- Then one honest next step. Find what you qualify for, when you're ready.
- familycaregive. For the one who noticed. familycaregive.com
The hardest part is saying it.
Three gentle ways to bring it up — without making them feel managed. Take the one that sounds like you.
Practice the talk before you have it
Their lines are scripted; you type yours and see what landed. Nothing is sent.
Practice a talk →The private way to carry it.
ComfortCard is built on the private, on-device foundation Apple gives you: the reading runs on the phone itself, and your family’s health is never fed to a general AI.
The care plan is a group text.
Forty-seven unread messages. Somewhere in there is whether she took her heart pill, who's driving Thursday, and what the neurologist actually said. Nobody's sure — everyone assumed someone else had it.
- Heart pill — taken, 8:10 this morning
- Thursday — a caregiver is driving, 2pm
- Neurology — dose changed; recheck in 6 weeks
Every app hands you a tidier folder and leaves you as the keeper — the job that's wearing you out. co-op.care is built to do the opposite: supply the keeper, a paid, accountable caregiver who stays. Its home care opens in Boulder County once its home-care license is issued. Until then, the first door below looks for help you may already qualify for.
When you're ready, three doors.
You don't have to figure it all out. Start with whichever fits.
Start with what's public. The Eldercare Locator, from the U.S. Administration for Community Living, finds your local Area Agency on Aging. 1-800-677-1116, call or text.
Find what you qualify for
A two-minute scan of the help that's already yours — VA, Medicaid, pre-tax dollars, paid leave — with the honest limits named plainly.
If they’re on Medicaid
New federal work rules may cost some people their coverage. A dated record of their condition, kept on your device, gives you something specific to show their state. Physician review is planned, not open yet.
Care from people who stay
A worker-owned care cooperative in Boulder, built so the caregiver owns their work and comes back. Home care opens once its home-care license is issued.
Some of the people carrying this are children.
In a family illness, the kids help too — and they're the caregivers no one counts.
An estimated 3 to 5 million American children help care for a parent, grandparent, or sibling who is ill, aging, or disabled. No one knows the real number — last year the government's own auditors found that national surveys aren't even built to count them.
And every federal program that supports family caregivers — the ones that fund counseling, training, and respite — requires the caregiver to be an adult. A fifteen-year-old caring for a parent qualifies for none of it. Colorado is one of only three states that even asks students whether they're carrying this.
If you're raising one of these kids, or you were one: you're not imagining how heavy it was. The people who actually do this work — finding caregiving youth and building support around them — are the American Association of Caregiving Youth. Start there.
The American Association of Caregiving Youth →Estimate and program facts: U.S. Government Accountability Office, Caregiving: HHS Should Clarify When Youth May Qualify for Support Services (GAO-25-106947, May 2025).