Meaning & Hope Institute

We provide services and support for anyone caring for a loved one living with dementia.

PROVIDING FOR OUR COMMUNITY

The Meaning & Hope Institute is a program of Duet: Partners In Health & Aging, a 501(c) (3) not-for-profit organization based in Phoenix, Arizona. The Institute provides services and support for America’s approximately 11 million family and friends who are caring for someone who has dementia. We also train and certify facilitators for Finding Meaning and Hope to equip them with the necessary information and resources to bring this program to family caregivers in their communities.

ON A MISSION

Our Vision of Hope

The Meaning & Hope Institute envisions a nation where both virtual and local support are easily accessible for family caregivers of loved ones living with dementia. This support is aimed at helping the family caregiver maintain physical and emotional well-being and find meaning and hope in their challenging caregiving journey. To achieve this vision, the Institute is dedicated to offering self-care based on resilience and other support services to family caregivers struggling for any reason including grappling with the complexities of caregiving to managing the ambiguous loss of caring for someone who is physically present but psychologically absent or not the way they used to be.

1 in 9

people age 65 and older are living with Alzheimer’s dementia

11 million

Alzheimer or dementia family caregivers provided care in 2022

THE CHALLENGE

An Unmet Need

Nationwide, the unmet need of family caregivers served by the Meaning & Hope Institute is extensive and rapidly growing. The Alzheimer’s Association estimates that 6.7 million Americans, ages 65 and older, were living with Alzheimer’s dementia in 2023. More than 1 in 9 people (11.3%) age 65 and older have Alzheimer’s disease, and 1 in 3 seniors dies with Alzheimer’s or related dementia.

During 2020, more than 15 million family caregivers of people living with Alzheimer’s or related dementias provided an estimated 18.5 billion hours of unpaid care, a contribution to the nation valued at $257 billion. By 2050, the cost of dementia care is projected to reach $1.1 trillion (Alzheimer’s Association 2021).

THE SOLUTION

How Duet is Responding

In 2017, nonprofit Duet: Partners In Health & Aging launched a volunteer-led Finding Meaning and Hope discussion series based on the work of Pauline Boss, Ph.D., and her groundbreaking book Loving Someone Who Has Dementia: How to Find Hope While Coping with Stress and Grief.

Prior to 2021, Duet’s Finding Meaning and Hope work centered on training and certifying local volunteer facilitators to conduct a discussion series teaching caregivers self-care strategies to shore up their well-being and make peace with complex grief as their loved one descends into dementia. To date, more than 400 facilitators have been trained, and more than 1400 family caregivers completed Finding Meaning and Hope.

Thanks to a federal grant from the National Community Care Corps, the Institute now trains facilitators to conduct and offer Finding Meaning and Hope in 14 states throughout Arizona and across the nation, in addition to Canada and indigenous tribal nations and Spanish-speaking family caregivers in Arizona.

1400+

family caregivers completed Finding Meaning and Hope to date

400+

active certified facilitators in 14 states throughout Arizona and across the nation have been trained to conduct Finding Meaning and Hope as of today

DR. PAULINE BOSS

About Dr. Pauline Boss

The work of the Meaning & Hope Institute is based on the pioneering work of Pauline Boss, Ph.D., emeritus professor of Family Social Science at the University of Minnesota; a fellow in the American Association of Marriage and Family Therapy; and former president of the National Council on Family Relations. For much of her professional career, Dr. Boss was a visiting professor at Harvard Medical School (child psychiatry), University of Southern California (gerontology), and Hunter School of Social Work in New York City. She is best known for her groundbreaking research as the pioneering theorist and clinical practitioner of stress reduction for people whose loved ones are ambiguously lost. Retired since 2022 from much of her professional work including her clinical practice as a family therapist, we are proud that she has named Duet: Partners In Health & Aging as one of three national organizations to carry on her innovative work for the Western United States and beyond.

Dr. Boss coined the term “ambiguous loss” in the 1970s and summarized the research that led to her theory in the widely acclaimed book, Ambiguous Loss: Learning to Live with Unresolved Grief (Harvard University Press,1999). Her more recent book, Loss, Trauma, and Resilience (Norton, 2006), was written for professionals who work with families of the physically and psychologically missing. Upon retiring from the University of Minnesota, Dr. Boss wrote her signature book for family caregivers, Loving Someone Who Has Dementia: How to Find Hope While Coping With Stress and Grief (Jossey-Bass, 2011). In 2016, she began her work with the nonprofit, Duet: Partners In Health & Aging, to create Finding Meaning and Hope, Duet’s signature ten-part video discussion series featuring Dr. Boss sharing her wisdom to help family caregivers understand the impact of ambiguous loss on their health and learn how to navigate the associated stress and grief. Today, Dr. Boss continues to play a central role in developing the methods and outreach of Duet’s Meaning & Hope Institute as a member of the Institute’s National Advisory Council.