Almost 62, Julie Dadiskos had her hands full.

She was working five days a week in the office of Spicer’s Marina in Groton while caring at her home in Niantic for her mother and her older brother, who’d had to use a wheelchair since sustaining a traumatic brain injury in 1988. Her husband, Chris Dadiskos, was working full time, too.

It was all becoming too much.

But Dadiskos wasn’t about to surrender her family members’ care to a nursing home or other institutional setting if she could help it. Her brother, Larry Levesque, had been born with special needs and had lived with at least one parent all his life. After Larry and Julie’s father, Fred Levesque, died in 2002, their mother, Jeanette Levesque, cared for Larry for 13 years without help while living with him in Portage Lake, Maine.

Six years ago, the Dadiskoses put an addition on their house in the Attawan Beach neighborhood and moved Jeanette and Larry to Niantic to live with them.

Thereafter, Dadiskos learned about the state Department of Social Services’ Adult Family Living program, which provides support, including financial assistance, for family members or friends who act as both primary in-home caregivers and hosts. The program’s been likened to “foster care for adults.”

Once enrolled in the program, Dadiskos, 65, qualified for a tax-free stipend that enabled her to retire three years ago and devote herself full time to the care of her brother and her mother.

“It just made the decision a little easier,” Dadiskos said of the financial support.

In January, Chris Dadiskos retired from his job as dockmaster with the Shennecosset Yacht Club, freeing him to provide his wife with more help. He turned 70 last week, an occasion Larry marked by strumming his guitar as the family, gathered on the deck of their home, sang “Happy Birthday.” The scene was idyllic.

“We’re so thankful for this arrangement,” Julie Dadiskos said. “We love being home and not having to run to a facility. My mom’s doing amazing; at 89, she looks fantastic. … Larry, he’s 70 now, is doing very, very well.”

Another southeastern Connecticut family, the Zanardis, also give the Adult Family Living program high marks.

Brett Zanardi’s father Dean broke his neck in a 2015 mishap and spent a year in a hospital after surgery. Brett and his mother Denise saw a lawyer specializing in elder care who led them to the Adult Family Living program and Mary Scagliarini at Assisted Living Services, one of the private home care agencies that acts as an intermediary between the Department of Social Services and families.

Were they interested in a convalescent home? Assisted living? Not if there was a way to avoid them, the Zanardis told Scagliarini.

“She was a complete life-saver,” Brett Zanardi said. “She got us into the Adult Family Living program and my father has remained at home since May 2016. Other than some slips and falls requiring hospitalization and some rehabilitation, we haven’t had to take him out of the house in over six years.”

“The stipend I receive has helped a lot,” said Zanardi, who works part time as a youth basketball coach and lives with his parents. He and his mother, a middle school paraprofessional, provide Zanardi’s father with around-the-clock care.

Zanardi said he’s especially grateful to have been able to keep his father out of a convalescent home during the pandemic.

“When we realized this was an option, it was a no-brainer,” he said of the Adult Family Living program. “I hope more people learn about it.”

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A survey conducted by The National Alliance for Caregiving and AARP, the organization for retirees, found more than one in five Americans was caring for someone with special needs in 2020. Almost 53 million Americans were providing unpaid care to a family member or friend, an increase of about 9.5 million since 2015.

More than 60% of family caregivers also were working.

Such statistics speak to the likely appeal of the Adult Family Living program, which remains relatively unknown despite existing since 2013 in Connecticut. Some found it to be a particularly attractive option during the COVID-19 pandemic, which motivated families to find alternatives to nursing homes and other residential facilities.

During the 2021 fiscal year, about 3,000 participants took advantage of the Adult Family Living program, which the Department of Social Services provides through the CT Home Care Program for Elders and the Personal Care Medicaid Waiver program.

For the state, Adult Family Living can be cost effective. According to a DSS spokesman, David Dearborn, in the 2021 fiscal year, the state’s Medicaid net cost to cover an individual living in a skilled nursing facility was about $45,123 after federal reimbursement. A participant in the CT Home Care Program for Elders, utilizing services that may have included Adult Family Living, cost the state $17,079 after federal reimbursement.

Adult Family Living is intended for older or disabled adults who receive care from a provider who lives in the home. Services can be provided in the home of the recipient or the caregiver, whichever is preferable to the recipient. The provider must live with the individual receiving the Adult Family Living services and cannot be a spouse or other “legally liable relative,” a term defined as a person who has a duty under the provisions of state law to care for another person.

Care providers act as employees of Adult Family Living providers ― authorized private intermediary agencies that supervise the care provider. These agencies ensure Adult Family Living homes meet required specifications, including ensuring the home is in clean and good repair, conforms to all applicable building codes, health and safety codes and ordinances and meets the recipient’s need for privacy.

Recipients must be over 65 or have a disability, need assistance in a least one of the tasks listed among the Activities of Daily Living ― eating, bathing, dressing, transferring from one location to another, toileting and maintaining continence ― and meet income requirements. The program provides for four levels of care based on the complexity of the recipient’s needs. The stipend paid to the care provider is based on the level of care and can range to more than $500 a week. Stipends are paid through the provider agency.

The Personal Care Assistance Medicaid Waiver pays for the costs of a personal care attendant to help individuals between ages 18 and 64 who have a physical disability with their Activities of Daily Living.

“The compensation makes such a difference,” said Scagliarini of Assisted Living Services, which has offices in Cheshire and Westport and clients all over the state, including the Dadiskoses and the Levesques as well as the Zanardis.

“Typically, a provider (enrolled in the program) leaves their job to provide care, or maybe they lost their job or they’re working part time,” she said. “It works for many families. There’s independent living and assisted living, too, but they don’t work financially for everyone.”

“It’s such a great program,” Scagliarini said. “I’ve seen it change people’s lives.

b.hallenbeck@theday.com