Unique scholarship assists students in caregiving roles

As a part-time caregiver and full-time student — with a part-time job — Braswell has a full plate. Next year for her final semester, a GSU scholarship dedicated to caregivers will help ease the burden.

Since the John and Betty Pope Caregiver Scholarship’s inception in 1995, recipients have been awarded tuition for up to a full academic year. The program is administered through the Rosalynn Carter Institute, also based in Americus.

About the scholarship

The funds, explained RCI Chief Operating Officer Karl Bond, go toward supporting students attending GSW full time while providing care for someone or pursuing a career directly related to caregiving. Each scholarship is set up to cover the full cost of tuition for undergraduate recipients for an academic year, and seven to 10 students receive the award each year, Bond said. Recipients can also receive partial reimbursement for some expenses, like books.

There is also some emotional relief that comes with not having to choose between education and caregiving.

“We know that balancing higher education and any sort of career responsibilities — it is a challenge,” Bond said. “Students aren’t having to make that choice of do they continue their caregiving responsibilities, or do they pursue their education?”

At-home caregiving

Braswell remembers when she was 14 years old, seeing her grandmother begin to show signs of dementia. Williams would lose her keys or forget components of driving. Her memory began to dwindle, and by the time Braswell was in high school, her grandmother was unable to drive. She had lost her ability to eat on her own by the time Braswell entered college.

Credit: Brittany Braswell

Credit: Brittany Braswell

At that time, Braswell was sometimes traveling back home to relieve her mother, Moneka Braswell, Williams’ primary caregiver. A special education teacher and pastor, Moneka Braswell would occasionally have evening obligations, so Brittany Braswell sometimes spent the night with her grandmother, feeding her, medicating her and making sure she was as comfortable as possible.

It’s been important to the family to continue caring for Williams at home, so family members have continued to balance her care with in-home nurses rather than enter into a nursing home situation. At this point, Braswell’s trips home muiltiple times each week mean significant expenses like gas and vehicle maintenance she would not have to incur if she did not have to leave Americus so often.

“It’s very stressful maintaining those things and making sure that everyone is taken care of,” she said.

Having the scholarship means relief in the face of these costs, alongside things for Williams, like clothing and food.

‘Change in the future’

The four-year school is Rosalynn Carter’s alma mater, and the Carter Institute, which began nearly four decades ago, makes a mission of making family caregivers seen, because the work they do often goes under the radar.

“Family caregivers are rarely the focus of policies or systems, creating immense strain and lack of support for this universal issue,” the RCI website, rosalynncarter.org, states. The scholarship is one support, and the site identifies it as “among the first scholarships in the country to recognize and support students balancing school and caregiving responsibilities.”

An urge to help and a determination to go big with that desire have taken hold in Braswell, despite the pressures of caregiving. Caring for Williams led her to pursue a degree in long-term care management with a dream of someday opening her own nursing home facilities with “intentional” care built in.

“I try my best to keep my studies one of my main priorities, but sometimes, I’ll have to … switch my priorities when it comes to the caregiving, because I do want to make sure that my grandmother has the best care,” she said. “But I also have to make sure that I’m juggling the things that are happening here at school so I’m able to be successful so I can make some type of change in the future.”