It is possible to bind Jira statuses to specific categories as described in Atlassian article here
You can use the categories in your template, for example, to define a condition when a notification should be sent.
As category-status relationship is 1:N, you can easily access the category like this:
Template for accessing status category
$issue.fields.status.categoryName $issue.fields.status.categoryKey
The first statement will give you the name of respective category and the second is unique identifier of the category.
In your template you can use the categories like this:
Status categories - example of use
#if ($issue.fields.status.categoryName == "Done") A notification that goes out when an issue is finalized #end
