Working Caregivers: The Invisible Employees

Veteran Caregiver Benefits That You Most Likely Do Not Know About With Erika Jacobson

• Selma Archer & Zack Demopoulos • Season 1 • Episode 32

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In this episode of Working Caregivers: The Invisible Employees, we’re joined by Erika Jacobson, a VA social worker, lifelong caregiver, and member of the sandwich generation, to unpack what caregiving really looks like inside veteran families. Erika blends professional insight with personal experience to help us understand why so many working caregivers feel isolated—and how support systems can make a real difference.

We talk through the VA’s Caregiver Support Programs, benefits many families don’t know exist, and why employers play a critical role in supporting caregivers at work. This episode is packed with practical information, advocacy, and a reminder that caregivers shouldn’t have to do this alone.

 

 

Episode Highlights:

[1:39] – Who working caregivers are and why they’re often invisible
 [2:23] – Welcoming Erika and a cross-country weather check
 [3:09] – South Dakota fun facts: Mount Rushmore and the Corn Palace
 [4:51] – Erika’s family caregiving journey begins
 [8:27] – How early caregiving shaped her career path
 [11:57] – Overview of the VA Caregiver Support Program
 [16:00] – Stipends, respite care, and caregiver benefits
 [20:36] – National Family Caregivers Month and caregiver isolation
 [23:00] – Zack challenges employers to partner with the VA
 [29:33] – Aid & Attendance explained
 [32:31] – Advice for working caregivers: ask for help

 

Links & Resources:

 Corn Palace (Mitchell, SD)
A uniquely South Dakota landmark made entirely of corn murals—highlighted during our lighter conversation about Erika’s home state.
https://cornpalace.com/

Mount Rushmore National Memorial
One of the most iconic U.S. landmarks, also located in South Dakota and mentioned during our opening conversation.
https://www.nationalparks.org/explore/parks/mount-rushmore-national-memorial

National Family Caregivers Month (November)
A time dedicated to recognizing, supporting, and uplifting family caregivers—an important focus of this episode.

VA Caregiver Support Program
Provides education, resources, respite care, and support for caregivers of eligible veterans.
https://www.caregiver.va.gov

Find Your Local VA Caregiver Support Team
Search tool to connect directly with your local VA Caregiver Support Coordinator.
https://www.caregiver.va.gov/support/New_CSC_Page.asp

Comprehensive Assistance for Family Caregivers (PCAFC)
A VA program that may offer a stipend, health coverage, and expanded respite care for caregivers of veterans with qualifying service-connected disabilities.

Aid & Attendance Benefit
Additional financial assistance tied to the VA pension for veterans or surviving spouses who need help with daily activities.
https://www.va.gov/pension/aid-attendance-housebound/

VA Wartime Periods (Pension Eligibility)
Defines qualifying service periods for non-service-connected pensions and Aid & Attendance.
https://www.va.gov/pension/eligibility/

Erika Jacobson’s Documentary
A powerful look into Erika’s caregiving journey and lived experience.
https://youtu.be/Tt6Nfsz5vi0

 

If you enjoyed this episode, be sure to follow the podcast and leave a review. Remember to check out our website at invisibleemployeeadvocates.co

Erika Jacobson:

It's so important, and I know that it's difficult, but you have to learn to be uncomfortable and ask for help. Caregiving can be such a lonely thing, which is kind of ironic, because you're there caring for like this other person, but all your energy goes into the needs of this other person, because you love them and you care about them, and you want them to be well, that you just lose yourself sometimes, and especially when you're trying to connect with people around you who don't share that same experience, it's hard to form relationships with them, even like friendships, because they just don't get it. I've had people flippantly say, like, well, you don't have to do that for your sister, like she's in a facility. It's just foreign to be like, I could not just walk away. And you know, I guess I could, but it just doesn't work like that. But another caregiver would understand that.

Unknown:

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% 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 afternoon, good evening. From wherever you are, calling and checking in with us. We thank you for coming to the working caregivers, the invisible employee podcast. My name is Zach demopoulos. I'm Selma Archer. Hey, Selma, how you doing? You know, we haven't talked about the weather in a while. What's how's the weather out in the west coast? Actually, kind of not good. What? What's not good for Californians actually is cold and rainy, but we need the rain, so can't complain. Okay, okay, well, it's it's not raining, but it's definitely cold in New Jersey as well. We have a guest who's from South Dakota, so we got to ask her how the weather is. Erica Jacobson, welcome to the show. How are you?

Erika Jacobson:

Erica? I'm very well. Thank you. And yeah, it's, uh, it's pretty dreary, like it's about ready to dump some serious snow on us any day.

Unknown:

Oh my goodness. Just gonna ask, have you had any snow yet?

Erika Jacobson:

Yes, we have. It's kind of wet. And then snows again and wet again. It's just trying to hang on to the last little bit of fall around here. Oh, boy,

Unknown:

now are you from South Dakota? Raised and grew up there?

Erika Jacobson:

Yes, I am born and raised here in South Dakota.

Unknown:

That's pretty cool. That's a first for us. I'm a first guest from South Dakota. Yeah. So you've got to share with our audience something that maybe we typically would know about South Dakota. Something something fun, something interesting.

Erika Jacobson:

So where I'm located is probably the furthest you can get from Mount Rushmore is the one thing that probably most people know about South Dakota. Yeah, about six hour drive. But the closest thing here is that we have a corn palace. That would be a probably unique thing in Mitchell, South Dakota, and it's a building, and it's like a castle, and it's made completely of corn.

Unknown:

All right, we're gonna put the link in our Sonos to that. All right, that's pretty cool. If we can find it, wow, that is pretty cool.

Selma:

I have to put that on my bucket list, along with Mount Rushmore, yeah, yeah.

Unknown:

Well, thank you for sharing that. That is we'll add that to the list, along with mountain Rushmore. Thank you, Erica, but thank you also for joining us. We found out a little bit about Erica during the month of November, which we know is the national family caregiver month, and also Veterans Day is in the month of November, and that's how we were able to find out about Erica and what she does with the Veterans Administration. So we are going to talk today a little bit about caregiving and veterans, and it is an excellent, excellent benefit I will share with you. Erica, I ran a home care business for 13 years, and that was the, almost one of the first five questions I would ask a family when I would meet them, is somebody a veteran in the family, because if they are a veteran, there are quite a few benefits, and so we're going to get into a couple of them, I'm sure. But let's start off Erica. Tell us a little bit about you. Your background?

Erika Jacobson:

Yeah, I was born and raised in South Dakota, specifically, a really small town just south of Sioux Falls, which is the largest. City in in South Dakota called Lennox, and I actually still live there to this day with my dad. I moved back in to care for him. Ironically enough, so caregiving has kind of always been a part of my life since I was really small when I was around three, three and a half, I had, I have a sister who's 18 months younger than me, and we had an accident with our family, where my dad had this sump pump, and he wanted to test it see if it worked or not, and he put it in this pool that we had been playing in all weekend. It was like a baby pool. And we actually have some home videos from right before this happened, of this baby pool and whatnot. I have, like, some memories of what happened, but most of it is filled in from what was told to me, but the sump pump pump the water out of the pool. And when my dad was kind of going in and out of the garage, my little sister touched the water and a part, and it failed and electrocuted her. So these were the days before 911, so my dad really didn't know what to do. He didn't know CPR, so he was like, trying to figure out, like, phone book, because my sister was literally deceased at that time, so we had to jump into he has he had this Trans Am, he still has it. And went to the family doctor in town. He was like, have a barbecue in his yard. And we raced up to Sioux Falls in this car, and the doctor was doing CPR on my sister and got her to the hospital, but she'd been dead for some time. They managed to bring her back, but it caused some significant brain damage. She became very severely disabled from that point in her life, like she could not do any of her self care. She eats through a feeding tube. She doesn't speak, makes like some verbal like noises, doesn't see very well, can't move herself at all. So needless to say, that kind of put a wedge in my family, and my parents got divorced shortly after that, so my dad kind of took on this role of being my sister's caregiver, and in addition, he's a 90% disabled Vietnam veteran himself. And my mom coped with it. You know, she had her own struggles, but I live primarily with my dad and my sister who, during the week, would go to like a care center back then, the facility was called cripple Children's Hospital. It's not very politically correct today, but they changed the name. It's it's now like life scape here in Sioux Falls, but my dad, to this day, since then, has her home every weekend and during the week, takes her out multiple times. He's always kind of been a caregiver for her, and then I've always kind of been there to help in that situation. So I was kind of naturally drawn to it early on, and it just was kind of a normal thing for me. So when I just, you know, finally grew up a little bit and tried to figure out

Unknown:

what I wanted to do with Yeah. How old are you at this time when you're caring for your sister and also kind of looking after your dad a little? How old are you at this point? If you don't mind me asking, yeah.

Erika Jacobson:

So I My birthday was actually just like last week, so I turned 37

Unknown:

very young. Yeah, yeah. Happy birthday. Very sorry to hear about the tragic accident with your sister and and also, thank you to your father for his service. By the way, you been definitely on a caregiver journey. So we'll talk probably more about that in a minute, but tell us how that brought you over to the VA, and what you do for the VA,

Erika Jacobson:

yeah, so I knew I wanted to help people, obviously, from having that experience growing up, so I kind of became that stereotypical, like high achiever, and I went to college and got my bachelor's in psychology and sociology from Augustana College here in Sioux Falls. It's now Augustana University, and a graduate of honors and sociology. And I was like, Well, what do you do with a sociology and a psychology degree? And I had a professor say, Well, you know, have you ever thought about being a social worker? And I was like, Well, what's that? When she explained it to me, I kind of realized that's what I wanted to do, and so I moved down to Omaha, Nebraska, and I went to the University of Nebraska in Omaha, and got my master's in social work. And I knew I wanted to I. Go to the VA because I tried really hard to actually get into the military, but I'm a pretty stocky gal, so I Power Lift. Actually, I compete or train in power lifting, mainly so I can lift my sister, but I because of that, I have a lot of muscle and I just don't fit the measurements that they want for a lot of the military stuff. So next best thing was, I was going to be a social worker for the VA. That's what I wanted to do, because VA is the number one employer of social workers in the nation, as the highest number of social workers, I didn't know that. Wow, yeah, yeah. We are kind of embedded in all levels of the organization, which is pretty innovative, yeah, but the only population we don't really have a lot of impact on is children, which probably the program that I run is the closest to that. But otherwise, there's a social worker that does a little bit of everything in VA. When I got out of school, initially, I worked for a small nonprofit and got my license in substance abuse counseling, actually working with, ironically, kids. And then I finally got into the VA due to a friend who I had done an internship with with the VAs homeless programs. One of the things that VA offers is they have a very large homeless programs that offers lots of different programs underneath of it that really try to meet the veteran where they're at. And the one that I did was the HUD VASH program, which is a partnership between HUD and the VA that gives a veteran a voucher, housing voucher, and then a case manager to help keep them successfully housed in the community. So that's what I was initially hired on for the VA, and it kind of just went from there.

Selma:

So no Erica. I was just thinking earlier this year, we did a whole newsletter focused on homelessness for veterans in this country, and in the research, we ran across information about some of the VA programs, and one of them was the VAs caregiver support program. Can you tell us a little bit about that one?

Erika Jacobson:

Yes, so that's actually the program that I am in charge of now at the Sioux Falls VA Healthcare System. And every VA has the caregiver support program, and it has kind of a long history. Came about the caregiver support program came about around 2011 officially, but it had been in talks in 2008 it came about because we had a lot of young men and women coming back from the conflicts we had overseas with lifelong, debilitating injuries, and they were very young. And if you looked at the news back then, there were a lot of families that were having to quit their jobs to care for these young people that they didn't want to just put in nursing homes. So the VA said, No, we can't do that. We need to step in and help these families and these veterans and so they that's how the caregiver support program initially came about, and it's gone through several changes over the last 14 years or so, 15 years it's been around. But what I when someone calls to ask about the program, I kind of tell them, you know, we kind of, we kind of have one program that most people qualify for everything, and there is just a couple of extra benefits that a veteran has to apply for and be eligible for. We have our program of general caregiver supportive services, and we like to talk in acronyms at the VA that a lot of the military too. So we call that pgcss, and basically that's open to anybody who identifies as a caregiver of a VA eligible veteran. So if the veteran and the veteran has to give consent and say, yeah, it's okay, and this person helps me with my care, and caregiving, as you guys know, is very much on a spectrum a continuum, so that that can be as much as like, Hey, I'm making sure, like my dad gets to his appointments and keeps him straight, and, you know, takes care of himself in terms of eating right and all that, and taking care of his mental health all the way up to doing like the physical, hands on cares and everything. So we take people across that whole spectrum. We really take the philosophy of trying to meet the caregiver where they're at. Our goal is not to just create more things for them to do, because they will, you know. So we have very small interventions like our Annie texting program, where caregivers get a text a couple times a week. Like that. Might say, Hey, did you know somebody with dementia, XYZ, blah, blah, blah, or it might be like a motivational thing, saying, Hey, did you Hey? Did you know every minute that you stay angry, you lose 60 seconds of happiness, which I've had caregivers call me before and say, did you just text me? And they're like, Oh, I just really needed to hear that. And like and and all the way up to where, you know, we have the traditional support groups, whether that's virtual, over the phone, in person, education groups, we we've taken veterans and caregivers to horse farms before, so we just really try to offer whatever it is they need. And obviously we have the ancillary benefits to, like the respite care through the VA home health services, we can help them. And the main thing I tell people is, sometimes it's nice just to have one person to call and say, like, does the VA do this? Does the VA do this? Because, because it sometimes can be intimidating to know how to access the VA, and we try to make that a little bit easier for them. So that's the general program. And then the program that that probably gets the most attention is our program of comprehensive assistance for family caregivers, and that one is gone through several changes, but right now, the criteria to get on that program is a veteran has to have a 70% service connected Disability or higher, which means that they filed a claim with the VA and said, Hey, I have, I have XYZ medical or mental health conditions that I didn't have before I went in the military, and they continue to cause me problems. So the VA is deemed, yep, you do still have those problems. Here's your rating. We've rated you over 70% disabled. And those veterans do get a disability check from the VA to try to compensate them for those disabilities, and then they get additional benefits that they can apply for and whatnot, like, like my program, so they have to have that rating, and then they have to have a caregiver who's providing them cares that are keeping them in the home. If they are related, they don't necessarily have to live with them. If they're not related, they do. So if they meet those things, they can. They can actually fill out the application and hand it to me, get the application, and then we do an assessment process to see if they meet the clinical eligibility of the program. And right now, as that stands, the simplest way I explain it to people is there's certain things that have to be happening for at least six months. The veteran has to need a hands on assistance with at least one of their activities of daily living. So that's needing help with eating, bathing, dressing, going to the bathroom, stuff like that, or they have something going on, whatever it is, it's just really been documented that it's not safe for them to be alone for long periods of time. We do those assessments to see if that's the case. Locally, at our at our hospital, we try to help them have the best case we can, and we send it up to an eligibility team that's made of VA professionals at this part of the country. They look at those applications and decide, yep, that meets that threshold or No, it doesn't, and they'll let us know if they can let them on or not. And if someone gets approved, the caregiver can get paid to care for the veteran in the home, so the caregiver gets a stipend. They also can sometimes get access to health insurance through the VA if they need it. It's called champ VA. They get additional respite care services that a veteran who is not on the program would not have access to, lots of other little ancillary benefits that can be helpful to try to keep that veteran in the home. In a nutshell, that's the program.

Selma:

It's a lot. Just to clarify for me a little little bit, not sure. The CSP, it sounds like it's focused on supporting the caregiver who's caring for the veteran, yes, whereas the comprehensive program, the veteran has to be at six 70% disability related to his servant, his or her service, but focused on the veteran. Like, What? What? Yeah, who's who has to be eligible in each program? Is it the caregiver and the CSP and the veteran in the comprehensive

Erika Jacobson:

or both? So we focus on the caregiver in both programs, but for the caregiver to get the stipend in the comprehensive program, the veteran has to meet certain criteria. Okay, does that make sense? Yes, yeah, yes.

Unknown:

So I just needed that clarification. Okay, cool,

Erika Jacobson:

and then we do provide ongoing case. Management once they are on the program, either program so they get a social worker. We have social workers, nurses, occupational therapists. Some other programs have psychologists, other professions that follow them ongoing and make sure that the caregiver may that's our main focus. Has what they need to continue to be healthy and happy and support that veteran in the whole

Selma:

Zach mentioned earlier that November was Veterans Day as well as national caregiver month, just wondering what the VA does to recognize and support November, as well as all year round for caregivers.

Erika Jacobson:

Yeah, so national family caregiver month is a really big deal for our program nationally, we always make a point to have it be a pretty big celebration, and try to uplift our caregivers and offer lots of different events to help them feel appreciated and supported. So every year we have a theme, and this year's theme is, caregiving connects us, community strengthens us. And I really do kind of resonate with that theme, even with my own personal experiences, because caregiving can be such a lonely thing, which is kind of ironic, because you're there caring for like this other person, but all your energy goes into the needs of this other person, because you love them, and you care about them, and you want them to be well, that it you just lose yourself sometimes when, especially when you're trying to connect with people around you who don't share that same experience, It's hard to form relationships with them, even, like friendships, because they just don't get it. You know, I've had people flippantly say, like, well, you don't have to do that for your sister, like she's in a facility, or blah, blah, blah, and it's just, like, it just, it's just foreign to be, like, I could not just walk away and you know, I guess I could, but it just doesn't work like that. But another caregiver would understand that. So what we're really trying to focus on this year is trying to connect our caregivers together so that they don't have that feeling of loneliness and that they don't have to feel guilt about how they feel, that it's okay to be frustrated sometimes and lonely in the situation that you have, because that's a normal human experience for what you're dealing with.

Unknown:

That's fantastic, isolation, depression, loneliness, those, those seem to be very common undesirable side effects of being a caregiver. So that's great that you guys are focusing in on that Erica, you know, our listeners are mostly like working caregivers. You know, they're employees and HR and employers and managers. If I'm an employee and I'm working for a company and I have a veteran in my family, how would I know about any of this, and how would I go about learning more about this?

Erika Jacobson:

Number one is, I would encourage any employer just to reach out to their local VA because, like I said, every single VA Hospital has the program that I run, and it's consistent. So we all have kind of the same structure. We offer relatively the same programming. We are connected to each other. For myself, if an employer reached out to me and said, Can you come educate us about what your program offers? Could totally do that, of course, getting permissions from certain upper people first, but that's okay, yeah, just sharing information about the different resources that we do have, you know, and I will say, we do have several caregivers that we serve in our program that do work, and they have employers that have been fantastic about being flexible and understanding and trying to meet them where they're at, and that they're able, they are able to still get that stipend. So even if they are on our paid Caregiver Program, and they're able to work some and get that stipend, so that is really helpful to them to be able to maintain the situation. So that would be my first thing. I always, you know. And the other thing is, I always tell people, if you have no idea where to start with the VA, just call the general number, hit zero for the operator, and say, get me to a social worker. Because usually they they will know where to at least get you started. My thought is, we keep the engine running around here.

Unknown:

So yeah, I love that. I love that. And every once in a while, we like to throw a challenge out to our audience. And I'm going to throw a challenge out there right now, if you're an HR or manager or a leader, an employer, do exactly what Erica just suggested, reach out to the local VA and find out a little bit about what they do, maybe bring them to the workplace and let them do do a webinar, because I got to tell you, Erica, most people do not know about what you do and the work you do unless you're already getting VA benefits. Right? Weekend of the day.

Erika Jacobson:

Yeah, I always say the, you know, we're the best kept secret always, like the VA has so many things we do offer and and we do try to get information out, but I don't know what it is why we have such a hard time doing it. And I will, I should mention, for the caregiver support program, if you just go to the national VAs website, there is a page where, depending on where you live, you can search for your contact information for your local caregiver support program, so you can get direct contact like the person in your area, that's me. They can answer your questions for sure.

Unknown:

Thank you. Thank you. And again, we'll put some we'll put some really important links into our show notes, just in general, about about the VA and what they offer from your personal experience, you know, with your sister and your dad, caring for your dad, just wondering, we always asking people, What are the biggest challenges? You know, as caregivers, what is your greatest joy in doing this work? You know that you do professionally, as well as in caring for your sister and

Erika Jacobson:

your dad. My biggest joy in my work, I would say, is I really enjoy connecting people together and resources together. It's it's what gets me really going in the morning as a social worker, and just seeing people light up when they connect with each other really quickly. We had, we held this kickoff event for nationally family caregivers month earlier this this month, actually. And I worked really hard to plan this event. And I had all these vendors there. We had this lady doing singing bowls. I don't know Tibetan singing bowls. I don't know if you guys know what that is, yeah, and I had marketed it everywhere, and I really pushed it out, and you had, like, barely anybody come, and that was kind of a bummer, but I but the two caregivers that really came and enjoyed it were ladies that are in our program, and they they had formed a friendship by being in our program, and their husbands, both struggle with dementia. They always were joking about like, well, it's like they meet each other for the first time whenever we're together and and they're just lovely ladies, and just seeing them happy together, and, like, we just gave them the royal treatment, because they were one of the few people there, and we're like, well, I'll do everything for you, and that, like, those moments are really what mean a lot to me, for my family. Earlier this year, I had to move back in with my dad. And I kind of you always see your your parents sometimes is like larger than life, and my dad is my hero. He will, He will always be my hero. And it was a kind of a realization that he actually needed a lot more help than I had realized, and I've been able to help him get his house all renovated like he needed, like in the so, you know, the VA does offer assistance in some grants to, like, renovate your bathroom if you need it, if you're a veteran, to help with. Like, I helped him get that. And so that made it also easier for my sister and whatnot, and just being able to see that he's healthy and happy and continuing at 76 years old, to be able to take my sister home every weekend because he he couldn't lift her anymore. So then I've been there to be able because I can do it. That's really what kind of fills my cup. I guess I don't know if that answers your question. Yeah, it does.

Unknown:

It does, and it also validates your desire to be a social worker. You define social work you really do by what you just shared with us, connecting people, connecting them with resources and just the love you have for your family. I You're amazing human. Erica. Thank you so much for sharing so much. But before that last question, I did want to ask you real quick about aid and attendance. Are you familiar with that? Yes, just for our audience, maybe briefly, could you just share what aid and attendance is? I know that's separate from what you do, right? Yes. So just for information, I think it's an important benefit that I used to preach all the time when I was in home care. So if you might, can just briefly say what that is, and I'll put a link in the show notes about it.

Erika Jacobson:

So I will preface this by saying, like, if you want to sign up for aid in attendance, or you have a question about it, I would go to a local Veteran Service Officer. And every county in this country should have one of those are usually housed in your courthouse. So if you, if you type in blah, blah County Veteran Service Officer, they'll come up and you can go talk to them, so they will have the latest, greatest knowledge on this benefit. So. But aid in attendance is is tied to another VA benefit called non service connected pension. And a non service connected pension is for veterans who they have to have served during what the VA considers a wartime period. And you can Google that too. You can google VA wartime periods, and it will show you and they have to be lower income. So the purpose of a non service connected pension is to make sure our veterans are not living in poverty. So say a veteran is getting $500 a month in Social Security. A non service connected pension, would raise their income up to the federal poverty line. Aid in attendance is an additional amount of money, just a little bit on top of that, that they can get if they're needing more care in the home. And so it's a little bit more money sent to them that they can use to help pay for maybe some home care, or sometimes people will use it to help offset the cost of some assisted living costs and whatnot. It's, it's, it's not really a huge amount of money, but it's something widows of veterans can get it as well, if the veteran had been eligible for it, but, but if you want to know more about it, a Veteran Service Officer can definitely assist you with it.

Unknown:

Thank you. We will put a link in it, because that's a very important benefit that many people do not know about, or they find out when it's too late and listen, every penny counts, especially if you're on the lower income scale of things, every penny counts. So certainly I want to make sure that we share that with our audience. Last question for you, Erica, and you've been such a joy. Thank you. You're a working caregiver yourself, right? So you're caring for your sister, you're looking over Dad, you moved in with them, and you're holding down a full time job, and you're a social worker on top of all that. Wow. So one kids too, and you got two kids, so we didn't even talk about that. Wow, my goodness. So you're a

Erika Jacobson:

sandwich generation caregiver, Yeah, I bet four, four year old and a two year old.

Unknown:

Wow, oh my gosh, wow. Yeah, you're almost a club sandwich with everything you got going on, including your sister and also, but, but, God bless you. Wow. For people out there who are trying to hold down a job and be a caregiver, what's one piece of advice you'd give them to help them out?

Erika Jacobson:

Who I actually had to learn this recently, and some people probably listening to this are going to giggle to themselves, but I think a lot of caregivers are very high achieving people, because they will just take care of things, right? They're like, I got it. I'll take care of it. They'll always say yes. And they they are terrible at asking for help when they so clearly need it, and people don't understand. It's like, Well, why don't you just say you need help? Sometimes you physically cannot make yourself do that. So the same traits that make people really high achievers often will draw them also to be caregivers, sometimes to their detriment, and they'll burn the candle at both ends. So what I would say to those people is it's so important, and I know that it's difficult, but you have to learn to be uncomfortable and ask for help and to say no, it is okay to say no, and you can't expect other people to read your mind, because what happens is this resentment of like, Why can't people see I'm struggling? Why won't someone offer to help me? And you feel like people are intentionally ignoring your needs when they're not they can't read your mind if you don't say what you need, so it's just something that's really hard for a caregiver to learn to do. So I would also encourage employers to really try to build that into their professional development. Of those employees is that like self care isn't just like a buzz word, like this is something serious you need to help these employees learn to do or you're going to have them burn out.

Unknown:

Excellent, excellent advice. This is Erica Jacobson with the VA in South Dakota. Thank you so much for joining us today, Erica, thank you. Thank you, Erica. Stay warm. I will 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.