With local and national elections just weeks away, we spoke with Nicole Jorwic, Chief of Campaigns and Advocacy for Caring Across Generations, a nonpartisan nonprofit working to build real, helpful, thoughtful care systems by transforming cultural norms and narratives about aging, disability and care, fighting for policy change at every level, and uniting a powerful coalition across the millions of us who are touched by care. Nicole shares the current state of care, what’s at stake in the upcoming elections, and what caregivers and their supporters can do to make a difference.
Two-thirds of family caregivers work full or part time in addition to their caregiving role. In this episode, we speak with Jessica C. Guthrie, caregiver for mother, about what it looks like when careers and caregiving collide.
Aging, illness, and injuries can cause people to lose some of their freedom and autonomy. As caregivers, how do we help our loved ones maintain that autonomy and what does that look like when their decisions or actions impact us or may not be taking the whole picture into consideration? In this episode, Justin and Allison talk about ways to approach these complex situations.
We will all experience grief in our lives, but there are unique and extra layers of emotions often felt by the person who had been the caregiver for the one who has passed. In this episode, we talk with Aisha Adkins, caregiver for her parents, about the loss of her mother and Eric Schlueter, caregiver for his wife, about his experience with grief since her passing.
Advocacy is an enormous part of the role of the caregiver. We advocate on behalf of our loved ones in medical spaces, with friends and family, in the community, and even directly with our person. In this episode, Allison and Justin discuss these aspects of advocacy, how personality traits impact our comfort with these tasks, and how supporters can help.
Allison and Justin talk about how caregivers need community care in order to practice self care, how they each practice acts of micro-care throughout the day, and what supporters can do and say instead of, “Are you taking care of yourself?”