OKLAHOMA CAPITOL --- The fifth annual Caregivers Survival Skills seminar will be held June 20 at Mercy Health Center’s Conference Center, 4300 W. Memorial Rd Oklahoma City.

The daylong event is jointly sponsored by the Oklahoma Department of Human Services Aging Services Division, Mercy at Home and Hospice programs and Areawide Aging Agency, Inc. of Oklahoma City. The one-day event features speakers who bring new perspective to care giving.

More than 59 percent of the adult population in the United States either is now or soon will be a family caregiver— someone who provides support, assistance and care for an aging parent or relative, a spouse or a grandparent who makes a home for a grandchild. Without good caregiver survival skills, these responsibilities can be overwhelming.

Keynote speaker Renda Burnett, RN, of Advanced Home Care, will offer a message of hope entitled, “Surviving Caregiving.”

Other speakers include: Jane Carney, MSW, professor of gerontology and sociology, Oklahoma City Community College, who will speak on “And I Thought I had it Bad…Putting It in Perspective,” and panel that will address issues on “Winds of Changes;” O. Duane Snavely of Mercy Hospice Program will speak on Roles and Relationships; Mary Lou Bates, M.Ed., adjunct professor at Southern Nazarene University, will address relocation and readjustment issues; and Charlotte Lankard, with the Center for Mind, Body and Spirit at INTEGRIS Baptist Center and weekly local newspaper columnist, will speak on “The Hidden Costs of Caregiving.

To register by telephone call 752-3600. Cost of the event is $10 per person, which includes lunch. Registration deadline is June 16, 2003.

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