Working Caregivers: The Invisible Employees

Jason Resendez on Caregiver Advocacy and Workplace Culture

• Selma Archer & Zack Demopoulos • Season 1 • Episode 9

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In this episode we welcome Jason Resendez, a leading advocate in the caregiving and Alzheimer's space, to the podcast. Together, we discuss the critical challenges facing working caregivers and how systemic changes can create supportive environments both in the workplace and in society. Jason shares his personal caregiving journey, the groundbreaking advocacy work of the National Alliance for Caregiving, and practical tips for employees and employers navigating caregiving responsibilities. From public policy changes to personal empowerment, this conversation sheds light on the invisible struggles and triumphs of working caregivers. Plus, Jason provides a sneak peek into the 2025 "Caregiving in the U.S." study, offering a glimpse into the future of caregiving data and trends.

Jason Resendez is a nationally recognized caregiving advocate. He currently serves as the President and CEO of the National Alliance for Caregiving, where he leads research, policy, and programmatic initiatives to build health, wealth, and equity for America’s 53 million family caregivers. In 2023, Jason was named one of the most consequential leaders in health and medicine by STAT News. Prior to joining NAC, Jason was the founding executive director of the Us Against Alzheimer’s Center for Brain Health Equity where he pioneered the concept of Brain Health Equity through peer-reviewed research, public health partnerships, and public policy. In 2020, Jason was name done of America’s top influencers in aging by PBS’s Next Avenue alongside Michael J. Fox and Surgeon General Dr. Vivek Murthy. He has been quoted by The New York Times, The Washington Post, The Wall Street Journal, STAT News, and Univision on issues related to caregiving and health equity. Jason is from South Texas and graduated from Georgetown University.

 

Episode Highlights:

[1:07] - Introduction to Jason Resendez and his advocacy work for caregivers.
[5:00] - Jason’s personal caregiving story and its influence on his career.
[10:58] - The creation and impact of the Caregiver Summit.
[17:32] - Insights into Alzheimer's and the intersection with caregiving.
[22:27] - Credible resources for addressing early signs of dementia.
[24:58] - Preview of the upcoming 2025 "Caregiving in the U.S." study and its significance.
[29:20] - How employers can support working caregivers and real-world examples.
[34:02] - Advice for employees: Navigating conversations about caregiving with managers.
[38:07] - A challenge to employers to create a culture of caregiving.

Links & Resources:

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Jason Resendez:

So knowing what benefits and what protections you have better empower you and equip you to go in and ask a question about and talk about your caregiving situation. This kind of question is so critical for managers who are listening to this to understand, you know, how that fear and how that stigma and hesitation exists within companies and to be proactive about addressing those issues. So one of the things that we tell our employer partners is, take open enrollment, take National Family Caregivers month. Take all these commemorative months is opportunities to highlight what policies you have in place to support family caregivers. So the more that employers can do to highlight those policies and benefits, the more of a caring culture we can create within workplaces to help address some of the stigma around asking those kinds of questions. Did you know that in 2020 there were 53 million caregivers in the United States, and by 2025, this number is expected to grow to 62, point 5,000,073%

Zack Demopoulos:

of these caregivers also have a job. They are called Working caregivers, and they are invisible because they don't talk about their caregiving challenges. Working caregivers, the invisible employees is a podcast that will show you how to support working caregivers. Join Selma Archer and Zach demopoulos on the working caregivers the invisible employees podcast, as they show you how to support working caregivers. Good morning, good evening, good afternoon. To all our listeners out there. We thank you for being here. This is the working caregiver, the invisible employee Podcast. I'm Zach and I'm Selma. Hey, Selma, how are you? I'm great. How you doing, partner? I'm doing fantastic. We're just coming off the holiday season when this has aired, so I hope everybody had a good holiday. How was your holiday? Well, you know, I'm very excited today, because we just came out with the yesterday we released our holiday newsletter. So at the time of this podcast, hopefully everybody will have enjoyed it, but it's just packed with so much great information. I think we should pat ourselves on the back on this one, because

Selma Archer:

I could, I couldn't stop reading it myself. It was just, it's just great. It's wonderful. It even has tips for the holidays, for caregivers, especially it can be a difficult time a year. So it has tips about how to deal with, you know, the stress of the holidays if you're a caregiver. So it's, it's really great. Hope you get a chance to take a look we do. Thank everybody for subscribing to our newsletter for reading, and if you haven't had a chance to do that, go to our website. The previous newsletter before that was was mostly focused on the national alliance for caregiving. And the man behind that, who has created quite a bit of buzz for the caregiver space is Jason rezanes, and we are so excited to have you welcome Jason. Thanks so much, Zach and someone for having me excited to be in conversation with you. You've got to be tired. You get any rest after the summit that we attended last month, we've been it's been a sprint from the summit into pushing the Older Americans Act over the finish line. So not much, but I'm looking forward to the holiday season. Yeah, we thank you for the work that you've done behind that some and I were just in awe for all the work that you do there. We're gonna get into just a minute, but let's first of all talk a little bit about you live in DC. How crazy is DC during holidays? DC is a great place during the holidays. It's crazy all the time, but in the holidays, at least, we have the beauty of places like Union Station being decorated for the holidays, Congress being decorated for the holidays. So really is a great place to be, especially if you have a toddler like me who loves lights and starting to become aware of what the holidays mean. So it's really a magical place during this time of year, which makes the craziest a little easier to take on.

Unknown:

In New Jersey, DC is well known for the cherry trees, because we thought we have all the cherry trees here, until we went to DC and saw there was a million of them down there. So I encourage all the listeners in the spring to go down there and check out. The cherry blossoms are amazing. But thank you for that holiday tidbit. We'll have to make a trek down here during the holidays too. Thank you. So let's get right into this. Jason, thank you again for being here. We want to, first off, start off by again, we're just congratulate you for all the advocacy work you're doing in the caregiver space. Some and I are working very hard for employers, for HR leaders, for managers, to learn more about the working caregiver. You're doing a significant amount of work in that you're a caregiver yourself. You're with your toddler. Tell us a little bit about how did you get into this, all this advocacy work? I. Sure

Jason Resendez:

so one. Thanks so much for taking time to be with us for the caregiver nation Summit. It was great to have you, have your perspective, have your voice in building support for the policy change that we need. And I've really grown up in the civil rights movement. I spent over 10 years at two of the nation's largest Latino civil rights organizations, LULAC and the what was then called the National Council of La Raza, which is now called Unidos, us really working on the intersection of community power, building education and health care, building power for communities that have been historically marginalized. It was in those roles that I really started to develop the intellectual, philosophical underpinning for the importance of systemic change and policy and shaping systemic change. And so that really became an interest and passion of mine. And I had a mentor who was working in the Alzheimer space, who was starting an organization focused on Alzheimer's advocacy and awareness, and one of the key strategies that they had was engaging underrepresented communities. So there was a women's focus, there was an African Americans focus, and they're starting a Latino focus, and that really brought me into the space of caregiving and aging. Because when you're working on Alzheimer's, you're working on aging. It's a progressive disease in that, in terms of the older you are, the higher risk you are for Alzheimer's. And also you can't work on Alzheimer's without working on caregiving, because it is a progressive disease the caregiver and importance of and responsibility of the caregiver gets more prominent as time goes on. And so it was really working in Alzheimer's that I became aware of and greater awareness of the caregiver crisis. It also helped me to understand that I had a caregiver story. It was working in the Alzheimer's community, working on issues related to Alzheimer's, like Medicare reform, paid family and medical leave, starting to really understand the data around caregiving and sandwich caregiving. That I realized that I had a care story. I grew up watching my mom raise three kids while working a full time job and caring for my grandmother, who battled multiple chronic conditions. And I didn't know it then, but she was a sandwich caregiver. It was 11 million Americans like her, balancing care and work and childcare while trying to, you know, live out her dreams and fulfill her goals as as a Latina in this country. And it wasn't until I was working in this space that I had that that framework for understanding what she was doing, providing care, I grew up just thinking, hey, you know, this is what it is to be a Latino family in America, very intergenerational, you know, moments where our grandmother lived with us. I thought that was just part of the culture, which it certainly is, but it was also the result of, you know, systemic breakdowns in our care infrastructure that made it a lot harder for my mom to provide that care. You know, it came with sacrifices. It came with great love and and commitment to her family, but it also came with consequences. You know, she wasn't able to finish her college degree. She wasn't able to become a certified public accountant, which was always one of her dreams. She made sacrifices in order to be able to stay in the workforce provide for us three kids. Will also care for my grandmother, navigating the Medicaid program, navigating insurance claims denials. That took time, and that time took away from her achieving her goal. So it was really while working in the Alzheimer's community and starting to understand those issues that I was able to better reflect and understand my personal experience and then bring that experience into the work that I do on behalf of family caregivers, bringing my mom's experience, bringing my experience now as a dad, to championing caregiving as a national Priority and a shared responsibility, and that's the work that we do at the National Alliance for Caregiving, and that's the work that I've learned over the years. You know the power of policy to create support and infrastructure to make life easier so that we all can thrive and have opportunities and success in this country. Your

Unknown:

mom's got to be really proud, man, and I got to tell you, thank you for sharing that story. I know your Latino roots go deep. I follow you on LinkedIn. I encourage everybody, all our listeners, to follow Jason on LinkedIn. Occasionally, he'll put a personal post out there. I love the story about your grandfather stepping up to pick up your. Uh, your college fees and and that just speaks volumes of your of your culture, your family. And I can relate. I'm a son of Greek immigrant parents too. So thanks to you, on behalf of all the represented cultures and everyone to all the work you're doing. Thank you. Thank you. I

Jason Resendez:

appreciate that

Selma Archer:

we mentioned a little bit earlier about the summit, Jack mentioned that we attended the for our first, you know, time, I know this was the second annual caregiver Summit. However, sitting there and being part of the excitement and everything just was so well organized, and the panels were so interesting and just so well done. Zach and I were just wondering, you know, how did you have this vision for the summit, and where do you see it going in the future? Because it was just really well done to be just two years old.

Jason Resendez:

Yeah. Thank you. Yeah, I we really appreciate you bringing your perspective to the table, and that really is what we are hoping to accomplish at the summit. I mean, when we started this two years ago, really, we looked at the landscape, and there wasn't a national advocacy day in DC focused on the challenges and policies needed to address those challenges around family caregiving. We'd seen a lot of work, and my background is a good example at us against Alzheimer's, the Alzheimer's Association, American Cancer Society, lot of disease specific, disability specific Advocacy Days, which are really critical, but nothing that really put the spotlight solely on the family caregiver. We saw an opportunity to uplift the voices of family caregivers on Capitol Hill, to champion the policy change that we need to better support family caregivers, and so our vision for the summit is to be that platform on an ongoing basis, and also to lean into the National Alliance for Caregiving expertise and power of Bringing voices and leaders together across sectors, across aging, across disability, across serious illness, and to have private sector voices and leaders in the mix alongside policy makers and advocates. That really is the beauty of the National Alliance of care. We're a membership based organization that brings together institutions across the care continuum, from pharmaceutical leaders to financial service leaders to patient advocacy organizations. We bring folks together to send a message that caregiving is our common ground, is our shared bond, yet we're not doing enough to invest in that bond, to recognize that bond, and to value family caregivers. So the summit is an opportunity in a really tangible and visible way to showcase that diversity, to showcase that cross sector approach, and to elevate solutions across those different aspects of society. So we were really excited to be able to feature the voices of family caregivers, whether that was in rare disease or in aging or disability, alongside national leaders like the governor of New Mexico Michelle Grisham, alongside leading industry voices to come together around a common set of policies, paid family and medical leave, investing in the Older Americans Act, investing in awareness and advancing our national strategy to support family caregivers. So it was a fantastic opportunity to really give a platform to the challenges and also the policies needed to support family caregivers, and to do that with family caregivers at the center. That's one of the things that I'm most proud of about the summit, is we encouraged everyone that was on that stage to center their care experience. So we heard about the caregiving experience of the governor of New Mexico. We heard about the caregiving experience of pavarthi Krishnan, who calls herself a medical mom, who provided complex care for two children with rare medical conditions. We heard about the caregiving experience of Senator Ed Markey of Massachusetts, and through sharing those stories, we understood better, understood the common bond that caregiving is and, you know, created common ground across sectors, across experience. And that really is the magic of being able to bring people together. That's a magic that we'll hope to get. Continue to create, I think the last thing is the power of that room and taking those voices of over 100 advocates to Capitol Hill at a really important time for the Older Americans Act, which is a bedrock policy that supports older adults and their family caregivers with things like counseling and respite services was really critical. In fact, in the last week, just a few days after we were on Capitol Hill, the Senate passed the Older Americans Act, and just last night, there was a piece of legislation that came out in the house around a continuing resolution that includes the Older Americans Act. So we feel very optimistic about the Older Americans Act getting reauthorized by the time your listeners are listening to this, I'm hoping that service providers are celebrating that these funds will continue. We'll see a modest increase. We won't see disruptions to service in relation to the really essential aging services that older adults and their family caregivers rely on in our advocacy day, our National Summit, was really critical to making that happen. Yeah,

Selma Archer:

that is a memorable event. We'll never forget it.

Unknown:

Yeah, I if so well organized. Kudos to your staff. Congratulations for the work that you're doing. I'll be honest with you, this first time I ever experienced anything like this, and I and my other two New Jersey cohorts, we went and met with six legislators or their staff, and we told caregiving stories, and somebody with us, one of my co peers there, she was telling a story at 19 years old, she had to be a caregiver for a mother who had Frontotemporal dementia. And I gotta tell you something, I don't care what side of the aisle you're on, they were, there were, at times, in motion, there were there were tears, there were conversations that really opened up their minds. To, my goodness, we do need to be listening to what you have to say. Dementia, you know, you mentioned you've got a great background in that, Jason and your work there. Can you share a little bit more about that? Because dementia sometimes is a very complex, misunderstood, I believe, the last time somebody told me there's over 40 different types of dementia and but you're working Alzheimer's. Can you just share a little bit more about that for our listeners, because we try to raise some awareness here, get some education, raise our empathy levels, support levels. So can you show a bit more from the like almost eight years that you experience that you worked as an believe, as an executive director at that organization? Yeah.

Jason Resendez:

So I spent a good chunk of time at an organization called us against Alzheimer's and Alzheimer's patient advocacy organization, and I led efforts around public health and health equity. I was the founding executive director of the US against Alzheimer's Center for Brain Health Equity, which was a partnership between us against Alzheimer's and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, really around spreading the public health message around Alzheimer's, right? There's a lot of like you said, it's a complex disease, dementia being a key aspect of Alzheimer's, but one of the things that is really important to understand about Alzheimer's is that you can modify your risk for Alzheimer's. It's one of the most exciting things that's happening after years and decades of research is that we now understand that we can modify risk for dementia. What's good for your heart is good for your brain. It means that with we diet and exercise, lead healthier lifestyles, we can reduce our risk of Alzheimer's. That doesn't, you know, eliminate risk of Alzheimer's. Plenty of folks who are, you know, physically fit, still develop Alzheimer's, but there we know that it's a multi factorial disease, and that there are modifiable risk factors for folks who don't have a genetic disposition. For example, we can increase our risk for dementia by doing things like eating really sugary foods and high fat foods, et cetera, not exercising, having high cardiovascular risk factors contribute to Alzheimer's disease. So the public health aspect of Alzheimer's is becoming a really in the prevention side of Alzheimer's becoming a really critical area to invest in it to make sure that there's equity in that message. So that's what we talked about. You know, the fact that Latinos are one and a half times more likely to develop Alzheimer's. African Americans are two to three times more likely to develop Alzheimer's. Women are at higher risk developing Alzheimer's and talking about that from a public education perspective, but also by linking that prevention message to some of the systemic inequalities that we see. So if you're able to modify risk for Alzheimer's. By eating healthier and exercising. Well, what happens when you live in a neighborhood where there's limited public space, where there's limited access to fresh and food and nutritious food, right? So there are these systemic issues that stand in the way from everyone taking advantage of that longevity message, that prevention message, and so really looking at it from a public health perspective, what systemic changes do we need to make in order to address that risk and caregiving is right there alongside those issues, right? We know that when we look at our data, caregiving in the US. Alzheimer's is one of the key drivers of caregiver hardship. Over 11 million Americans providing care for someone living with Alzheimer's or another dementia, and they're more likely to be providing complex care. They're more likely to be experiencing financial distrust because of their caregiving situations, they're more likely to experience emotional distress because of their caregiving situation. So there's ripple effects that are associated with our inability to address the causes and risk of Alzheimer's disease. And so we're really focused on understanding and championing systemic level investments that can have an impact on helping folks manage Alzheimer's care cancer care, where disease care policies like paid family and medical leave, policies like caregiver tax credits, policies that support caregiver training, services that, while are not condition specific, help to rise raised hides for caregivers and all different kinds of situations, but my background in Alzheimer's has really helped me to understand, you know, the evidence and the background for how we develop those policies and solutions from a public health perspective. Just

Unknown:

thank you for sharing all that, Jason and thank for thank you and that organization for all the work that they're doing. Just a quick, quick follow up, if you can. You know, do have some steps that maybe one of some of our working caregivers that are listening in, who might be seeing some early signs of short term memory loss of where are some credible, what are some credible steps they could take? You know, because you go on the internet and you'll just get overwhelmed. But do you have any suggestions in that respect? Yeah,

Jason Resendez:

it's one it's really important to understand, right, that there are things that we can do now when it comes to addressing our risk for Alzheimer's disease. So one, understanding what's good for your heart is good for your brain. So you know things that you should be doing to take care of your heart that's going to have ripple effects take care of your brain. In terms of resources, the Alzheimer's Association has really great resources related to understanding risk factors for Alzheimer's behavioral changes. The difference between Alzheimer's and dementia, the Alzheimer's Association is going to be a really critical partner in that and also a member of the National Alliance of caregiving. So I'd like to give them a shout out. Us against Alzheimer's has a resource called Brain Guide, which is an online tool that helps you assess risk and monitor cognitive change and then gives you information to have a conversation with a healthcare provider. I think that's the other thing that's really important, is be open to having a conversation with a healthcare provider, particularly within the Medicare program. Medicare is part of changes to the ACA, you have access to a cognitive checkup free of a copay, and so take advantage of that particular as you age, or if you notice that you know a family member you know, be part of that conversation. And then lastly, AARP. AARP has really great resources for just across conditions, but especially for Alzheimer's and other dementias from resources to support groups. Really great partner in understanding changes to brain health over the life course.

Unknown:

Listeners, don't worry, we will provide all the links to all the resources that Jason mentioned in our show notes, thank you, Jason,

Selma Archer:

speaking of the AARP, you guys, National Alliance for Caregiving, you do a joint study with the AARP. And I think the last one was 2020, 20. And Zach and I used it like so much in doing the research on our book, the data was just so critical. So we were just wondering. We know there's a new study coming out, 2025 another joint study. Can you give us some idea of what the caregiver landscape is going to look like in 2025

Jason Resendez:

Yeah, well, really, it's. Excited about releasing a new set of data on 2025 caregiving in the US is what we call a tent pole resource for the caregiving community. It's one of the most consistent trends analysis on family caregiving. We've been doing it since the 1990s in partnership with AARP. It's helped us to understand how challenges that family caregivers face are changing over time. It also helps us to understand the community of family caregivers, how big it is, and how that's changing over time. We know that over 53 million Americans providing complex, ongoing care in this country because of our work with AARP. So for 2025 we anticipate a couple things. One, we'll see how that number is grown. You know, what are the changes post pandemic related to caregiving? Second, we'll understand where some of those trends have changed. So in 2020 we saw that there are more folks providing care for someone living with Alzheimer's. You know, we're just talking about Alzheimer's disease. So we'll see how that trend has changed. We know that between 2015 and 2020 care coordination got harder. More and more folks are finding it difficult to coordinate care. More family caregivers are in high intensity care situations. So we'll see with the 2025 data how those trends have shifted since the pandemic. We'll also be introducing new cuts of data at the state level, so we'll be able to provide over 30 state level profiles of family caregiving at the state level from a demographic perspective, from an age perspective, from coordination and intensity perspective. So we're excited to get a little bit more granular with the data. The other big thing that we're excited about is we'll be releasing a companion dashboard and digital resource that goes along with the traditional report, so you probably engage with the report and in the PDF form, which is great. And researchers have hundreds of researchers just this last year, over 500 journal articles leveraged our data, but what we want to do is make that data more accessible to everyday users, to policy makers, to journalists, to advocates, and so we've been releasing a digital dashboard to help folks engage the data in a more dynamic way that'll put the data alongside caregiving stories. So we're excited about being able to do more to bring that data to life, to make it more visualizable and accessible for users, with the goal of continuing to shape policy and continuing to shape the cultural narrative around care of this country who is providing care? What are the challenges that they face, but also the joy associated with care? We know from that data that over 50% of family caregivers say that they find a sense of purpose and meaning with caregiving, and that's incredibly significant, because we can't talk just about the hardships of care. We have to address the hardships of care, but to what end? Right? We have to address the hardships of care, because at the end of the day, there's meaning, there's purpose, there's love, there's necessity. And by addressing those challenges, we can do more to center the necessary, the necessity of care and the humanity of care. Oh,

Unknown:

man, Jason, that's exciting. We, you know someone I look forward to attending the next year's summit, which will leave information about that for anyone who wants to participate or support. I imagine that'd be the focus. Hopefully the data will be out. We'll talk about that. And you mentioned you're showing data to everybody. We some, and I would also say we'd like, we need to show it to employers. Employers need to see it, and I noticed that you had a number of employers sponsoring and supporting the summit, which I was very, very pleased to see. Can you tell us a little bit about how are you getting employers to hear about this, how they're supporting you, and maybe even tell us a little story or spotlight one of them that some something that there may be doing in the caregiver space? Sure,

Jason Resendez:

so we have NAC is a membership based organization. So we have members from the private sector. We have members from local communities. We have patient advocates that are our members organizations like the American Cancer Society, we're proud to include in our membership. From an employer perspective, we work to make our data accessible to employers, right? So caregiving in the US is a great example where we're collecting data on the challenges that family caregivers face, but we're also seeing that one of those challenges is balancing work and caregiving. Right over 60% of family caregivers. Are providing care while working. Of those employed caregivers, over 50% are working full time while providing care. Yet they are experiencing challenges to being able to fully participate in their work while providing quality care. Some of those challenges include not having access to flexible benefits within the workplace, not having access to paid leave within the workplace, fear, fear of being discriminated against in the workplace, not getting a promotion, for example, because of their caregiving responsibilities. We know that 30% of family caregivers who are employed have never told their managers about their caregiving responsibilities, right because of things like fear of being passed up for a promotion because of their care roles. And so there's a lot of challenges that employed caregivers face, and our data helps our employer partners understand those challenges, and so a lot of our members come to us to understand what they can do to better engage their employees. Some of our members are organizations like Carillo, which partners with big employers to help navigate caregiving challenges. So what we're trying to do is uplift the private sector's role in supporting family caregivers. We partner with a lot of health care employers and health care organizations, because we know one of the key challenges that family caregivers face is taking care of their own health and wellness and being integrated into care teams to support the folks that they're providing care for. So we work with our members to leverage their expertise and their voices to champion changes to the healthcare system in support of family caregivers. So we really try to be innovative and dynamic and how we engage our members, who are employers, in advancing systemic solutions for family caregivers, but we're also looking to elevate their voices. So an example of that is during National Family Caregivers month, we work with a number of our members, including Pfizer home instead, Genentech to highlight the voices of C suite executives and their caregiving experience with a goal of starting to destigmatize care within the workforce. Start to destigmatize care within the C suite of employers so that we can start to create a culture of care. So we have the CEO of Genentech, for example, talk about her personal caregiving experience that helps to demonstrate that care connects all of us right, whether you're a contracted janitor or the CEO of an organization you know cares, our common bond supports those different rungs of employees here look a lot different, and there's so much that we can do to make those supports more equitable and more accessible, but being open about those care stories is a step in that direction, and so we work with our partners to facilitate that. Thank

Selma Archer:

you. Yeah, thank you so much for sharing that, all that great information about what employers can do to help support their working caregivers. So on the flip side of that, what advice do you have for employees? Recently, Zach and I had the pleasure of doing a webinar for a company, and we had that question posed to us from one of their caregiving employees. Well, how do we have the conversation with, you know, the manager about my caregiving status? So do you have any advice for the employees that are struggling about, how do I even, you know, come out and to have that conversation with my manager? Yeah,

Jason Resendez:

that's such a great question, and I think it can be scary, right? If you are scared of being passed up for a promotion, if you're scared of depending on the kind of, you know, employer and employee you are, you know, being potentially fired because of your caregiving responsibilities, you know, it's a it takes bravery to have that conversation. And so I think it also takes bravery to ask that question. I think the first thing that folks can do is understand what policies are in place and benefits are in place that are available to support caregiving situations. So there's a way to ask that question without talking about your specific care situation. So understanding, as you think about, you know, like you would in deciding between your next job, right, you're looking at and comparing employers, you know you would look and compare benefits one lens of looking at your benefits, misunderstanding what benefits you. Exist related to caregiver support. So I think that that's one way of approaching it. Second is understanding at the local level. Are there caregiver discrimination policies and are non discrimination policies in place? Lots of states and municipalities and cities have caregiver non discrimination policies. AARP is a great place to go and look up which states have and which cities have caregiver non discrimination policies, because knowing what benefits and what protections you have better empower you and equip you to go in and ask a question about and talk about your caregiving situation. And then I think looking at our their employer, employee resource groups in place, a lot of employers, and I'm sure you all have engaged with many of these have employee resource groups related to some of them are on caregiving, some of them around you know, women's empowerment or different dei initiatives. Sort of understanding what those employee resource groups look like might help to find a safe space for saying, Hey, how did you talk to your manager about this and starting to kind of put in place a set of approaches for engaging managers. And then I think, you know, asking a manager about what their care experience is is also another way of, kind of flipping that question and perhaps creating a safe space for talking more openly about your own caregiving experience. But I think it's this kind of question is so critical for managers who are listening to this to understand, you know, how that fear and how that stigma and hesitation exists within companies, and to be proactive about addressing those issues. So one of the things that we tell our employer partners is, you know, take open enrollment, take National Family Caregivers month. Take Alzheimer's Awareness Month. Take all these commemorative months. Is opportunities to highlight what policies you have in place to support family caregivers. So the more that employers can do to highlight those policies and benefits, the more of a caring culture we can create within workplaces to help address, you know, some of these, some of the stigma around asking those kinds of questions.

Selma Archer:

And that's, that's great, great advice. And that same webinar that I mentioned, we had a senior executive ask us the question of, what do we need to be doing to support our caregivers? So there are people in the C suite that are ready to help oftentimes, and they just don't know, they don't know what's needed, because the employee is not coming forward. So there's like this standoff, and both parties are wanting to work together, but no one's talking, so it's important that they have that space to do that. I That's great advice.

Unknown:

Great advice again. Thank you, Jason, for all those tips. Those are excellent. Like Selma mentioned, we've done a webinars, and that encourages conversations, but we got to prepare our managers too, right? So so we also need to make sure that we're having conversations with them, giving them some tools. I always like to do a challenge on occasion, so some I'm going to throw another one out there. I'm going to encourage or challenge an employer that's listening right now to at least reach out to Jason's organization and find ways to partner with them so you can become more aware, resourceful and supportive Jason. What is the best way that somebody can contact your organization.

Jason Resendez:

Folks who go to caregiving.org and learn more about the work that we're doing and how you can engage in support.

Unknown:

Thank you, Jason, thank you so much for your time. Thanks so

Jason Resendez:

much for having me for all the work that you're doing to create a culture of caregiving within workplaces, and for taking your time to be with us at the summit, to uplift share your experiences, it really takes all of us to create a more caring future where family caregivers are valued. So thank you for your contributions to that future.

Selma Archer:

We'll see you in 2025 Absolutely.

Zack Demopoulos:

Thank you for tuning in. Be sure to catch new episodes of working caregivers the invisible employees podcast every other Tuesday. Please also visit our website, invisible employee advocates.com to subscribe to our newsletter, purchase our book and learn more about how we can help you strengthen your workplace to become more supportive of working caregivers you.