Why Caregivers Are Often Overlooked at Work

In this episode, we sit down with Karen Kavanaugh to unpack the real challenges facing working caregivers—and why so many of them still feel invisible. From systemic breakdowns to cultural blind spots, we explore what’s really happening behind the scenes for employees balancing work and caregiving, and why employers can’t afford to ignore it any longer.

We also dive into what’s actually working. Karen shares powerful insights from her work with employers across the country, including innovative approaches to supporting caregivers in the workplace. Along the way, we reflect on our own caregiving journeys, what gives us hope, and the critical role community and leadership play in driving meaningful change. 

Episode Highlights

[1:36] - Welcoming Karen and kicking things off with a lighthearted intro (and Zack’s birthday!)

[4:44] - Karen shares her personal caregiving experiences and the impact of employer support

[6:58] - How Karen’s career led her into caregiver advocacy and research

[11:07] - The role of the Rosalynn Carter Institute and why employer engagement matters

[16:39] - Inside the “Innovation Lab” and what employers are learning about caregiving

[21:47] - Surprising insights and challenges employers face today

[25:05] - Misconceptions on both sides: employers vs. caregivers

[28:03] - Practical advice for managers to better support caregiver employees

[31:38] - Where Karen finds hope in today’s caregiving landscape

[35:37] - Simple, actionable steps employers can take right now

[39:04] - What gives us hope as caregivers and advocates

Links & Resources

Diego Rivera, Detroit Industry Murals
https://smarthistory.org/rivera-detroit-industry-murals/

Episode 30: The Future of Caregiving at Work with Lindsay Jurist-Rosner (Wellthy)

National Alliance for Caregiving https://www.caregiving.org/

Family Caregiver Alliance https://www.caregiver.org/

Rosalynn Carter Institute for Caregivers https://rosalynncarter.org/

REACT Report (AARP)
https://caregivers.org.il/wp-content/uploads/2017/10/AARP-ReAct-MASTER-web.pdf

Stand By Me: A Guide to Navigating Modern, Meaningful Caregiving https://www.amazon.com/Stand-Me-Navigating-Meaningful-Caregiving/dp/1668005808

Susie Singer Carter: @susiesingercarter

Jason Resendez: Linkedin

Karen Kavanaugh: https://www.linkedin.com/in/karen-kavanaugh/

karen.kavanaugh@tuftsmedicine.org

Episode 23: Grief, Caregiving, and the Power of Connection with Leslie Weirich

If you enjoyed this episode, be sure to follow the podcast and leave a review. Remember to check out our website at invisibleemployeeadvocates.com for more resources and subscribe to our newsletter for updates! We’ll catch you in the next episode.

Transcript

Karen Kavanaugh: 0:00

The main challenges to caregivers, whether employed or not, is a huge systemic failure and cultural indifference. And I hope this is changing somewhat, but that is still the case. So can we get employers to see in a much more granular way the connections between the system failures and what's showing up in their workplaces, because they're already paying for those system failures. And could they at the local level, because this would be much more difficult to do at a national or even state level, but at a more local level, within a region, say, could they identify some of those barriers and then work with other stakeholders, healthcare providers, clinicians, home and community based services, to begin to change some of those barriers, at least to begin with. Did you know

Jodi Krangle: 0:55

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.

Selma: 1:36

Welcome everyone. Thank you for joining us today. How are you doing there?

Zack Demopoulos: 1:40

Jack, I'm doing fantastic. Selma, how are you we're still shoveling out of snow, but that's jersey, that's that's life. How about you?

Selma: 1:50

California, I'm doing great. No snow here. Doing great. I'm so excited because we have a great guest today with us from Tufts University, Karen Cavanaugh, and we're excited about her being with us. Hi, Karen,

Karen Kavanaugh: 2:09

hi, thank you for having me and again. Happy birthday.

Zack Demopoulos: 2:13

Zach, thank you. Yes, it's my birthday. 46 once again, once again.

Selma: 2:19

Nah, wishing you, wishing you another a good another 100.

Zack Demopoulos: 2:23

Partner. Thank you. My mother just my mother just called me today, told me that she's 96 so I'm like, Mom, if I can make it to 96 I'll be blessed. She's 96

Selma: 2:38

out there. Yeah. Awesome. So Karen, to get started, we usually just do a little warm up and ask our guests to share something interesting about where they live.

Karen Kavanaugh: 2:49

So I am in Michigan now in Southeast Michigan. I am in a suburb of Detroit. I think Detroit is an incredibly interesting city. It is very vibrant, full of culture history, and so if you haven't been absolutely come and visit, it's a little difficult to get around unless you have a car. And I would say Salma, like, if you are in California, driving the freeways will be no problem for you, yeah, but it's really cold here now, and we have a much more robust winter this year than we have in previous years, and there's snow, not my favorite time of the year, so I would suggest the summer or the fall. The fall is really beautiful with the changing colors and the trees.

Zack Demopoulos: 3:47

Yeah. Little piece of trivia for you, Karen is the company that Selma and I used to work together with before Pfizer was part Davis. And they originally, okay, they originated in Detroit, didn't they? Selma, yeah,

Selma: 4:01

yes, I think so, yeah, yeah.

Karen Kavanaugh: 4:05

You have, okay, I have Yeah, right near Greek down, okay, yeah, yeah. Well, and if, if you do come back and you haven't been to the Detroit Institute of Arts, I should also say that the most beautiful mural by Diego Rivera is in the courtyard, and that is absolutely must see. It's breathtaking.

Zack Demopoulos: 4:27

We'll put that in the show notes. That's a that's a nice little piece of trivia. Thank you.

Karen Kavanaugh: 4:32

It is. Thank you for that really beautiful.

Selma: 4:36

So if we can get started, do you have a personal caregiver story that you could share with us.

Karen Kavanaugh: 4:44

I have two that were really defining. Both of them were completely unexpected. Both of them involved a high degree of unpredictability. At 1.1 of them was. Life threatening for my person, grateful to tell you that everything worked out okay with healing and recovery, but those experiences were really defining, and I saw firsthand how people who are providing care are often invisible, yet so essential. It required a lot of navigating of systems that I was familiar with but just not familiar enough with to really navigate. Importantly for our discussion today, I was so fortunate to have employers who understood. And in the first one, I had an incredible supervisor and and staff who said, Just go. Taking care of your person is the priority. My supervisor did the paperwork for me to take paid leave, which I had access to, a month of paid leave, which was really, really important. My team just picked up everything. They all checked in on me. They also connected me to other resources, and I also had family and friends. I had access to high quality care for my person. I was very, very fortunate and eternally grateful. And my story, unfortunately, is not the one that most people tell when they have a care and work experience, right?

Selma: 6:44

Yeah, unfortunately. And is that why I know that you've been such an advocate for caregivers for so many years? Is this personal experience why you have gotten into this kind of work?

Karen Kavanaugh: 6:58

Actually, it was not, although it was a little bit of serendipity. So the employer where I did work, so the Pew Charitable Trusts, they were amazing. I had many different roles there, and one of my last roles there, I was helping to lead a team of researchers who had done decades of work on household financial security, and it was helping them to think about how that research could be translated into public policy, legislation as well as issue campaigns. And in in the course of that, we all sort of took different drivers of financial insecurity, and I happen to take what are the effects of working while caring for someone who's aging, ill or disabled, so not necessarily child care, unless a child has a serious illness or a disability. So I looked at that, and I also looked at the direct care workforce, and the idea was to explore, what could the institution do that would contribute to this field? So I did a pretty deep dive on these two issues with respect to the effects of care on work. Did a couple of convenings with HR representatives, employers, other advocates in the field to really understand, you know what, what was happening, Gage awareness. What were best practices or evidence based programs that did two things, help to keep someone attached to the labor force, because this was household economic security, and a job is one of the most significant drivers of economic security and and also, those who are providing care while while working really don't want to have to choose one or the other for a number of reasons. And the second piece that we were really interested in is, you know, not only helping to keep someone attached to the labor force, but also, what are those supports that help to reduce the strain of balancing both within the workforce, at least to some degree? So really looked at that and really landed on, you know, we really should be engaging employers, and is there a way to actually help employers. We also did a number of interviews with people who were working while caring in different parts of the country to really understand their experiences. And this is where also we really sort of honed in on small and mid sized organizations, employers who have less resources, of course, than the larger employers, but can often be a little bit more flexible or nimble, but they don't. They just don't have the same kinds of supports. They don't have the bandwidth or the financial resources to experiment and see what works we also. Really learned that geographic locale is so important with respect to what is showing up in the workplace and what employers can do. I want to piggyback a little bit on a discussion I think you had a couple of months ago with Lindsay from wealthy where she talked about the need to really tailor work with employers and really tailor with them support that will meet the needs of their workforce. Because, you know, what is available in an urban or suburban setting is often not available in a rural setting. And as you both know, the healthcare system really has a significant, if not a lion share influence on the experiences of caregivers, and that is different by geographic locale. So that's that's how I sort of got into this. And ultimately, Pew did not move forward with an initiative. So I took the work over to the Rosalynn Carter Institute for caregivers, where it was incubated between 2021 2020 actually, 2021 and 2024 you

Zack Demopoulos: 11:07

mentioned the roles, and Carter is too, by the way, Karen, I do want to shout out to your that supervisor, that employer, that really supported you. Shout out to them. We need more examples of that. So thank you for sharing that story, and you were right, about 90% of the of the guests that we've spoken to have given us the opposite of that story. So it's good to hear the good stories too, because it's possible it could be done sometimes I do a lot of one on ones with complete strangers on LinkedIn. It's my way of giving back. And I'll give anybody 30 minutes as some guidance for their caregiver journey. And many times I'm giving them resources to go to and I will tell them there's nothing wrong with the paid resources you know, where they're really trying to promote their services to you, but there's so many academic and professional resources like the rosly Carter Institute, or National Alliance of caregiving, or Family Caregiver Alliance that go there first, they have just tons and tons of resources. Your role at Rosa Carter Institute, let's start with so your your studies moved over to the Ross and Carter Institute. So what your role was, what does Roslyn Carter Institute really do? And how can somebody benefit from the Roslin Carter Institute if they're listening to this show and they're a working caregiver,

Karen Kavanaugh: 12:30

again, I am so grateful that RCI, the Roslyn Carter Institute, agreed to take on this work and to incubate it. And in many ways, it's still work in progress, and so the idea is to engage small and medium sized employers to provide some expert facilitation and expertise in care and caregiving and the systems, and to really work with them to determine what what They might do within their workforce, how they might use their organizations as a lab of sorts to test out different supports for caregivers, again, that do two things, help them to stay connected to the labor force and to reduce the strain of balancing both roles. As you both know, there's not a lot of empirical evidence on effective supports. So it's not like we can say to employers, if you adopt this particular support, you should see outcomes A, B and C. We just don't have that yet. That doesn't mean that certain supports don't work. We just don't have right the evidence to be able to back that up, although there are a number of promising approaches and solutions, so we see, you know, kind of start there. And again, I said in the last piece, you know, why we focus on small and mid sized organizations employers, but the other reason is that they employ half of the US workforce. So a really, really significant number of people and employee caregivers are working in small and mid sized organizations, and that includes for profit, as well as nonprofit and public sector. We also are really interested in organizations that may be larger, where workflow and operations are such that people cannot work remotely, and where you have to think about flexibility, which is really important to employee caregivers, but you have to think about that in a much more creative way in order to implement it. So, so we bring employers together, and what we did at RCI to start with is we did a national survey of employee caregivers to hear from them in their own voices. What is the experience like? What types of support do you have access to? What are the most you know? What are the biggest pain points and what. What would be helpful, what was helpful, and if you didn't have it, what would have been helpful. So we released that survey in 2021 so it was right on the heels of the covid pandemic, and that certainly influenced some of what we got back. And then the next year, we released a report called Invisible over time, which really sought to sort of level set with regard to the empirical evidence on what we know about the effects of caring while working. Also, what do we know about the effects for employers of employee caregiving? And then to sort of lay out our next step, which was our inaugural innovation lab with six employers in Southeast Michigan. Over a 12 month period, we convened them, they were in and they were a mix of for profit and nonprofit organizations who were incredibly committed and just provided really valuable insight, and they were quite tenacious. And, you know, stayed with us that entire year, learning more about the effects, sharing what they were seeing, also sharing what they had tried and what didn't work. And also they were doing some informal surveying and polling of their own employee caregivers. Some of them were quite surprised to find that truly it was 20% of their workforce that was providing care. So, you know, mirroring that national statistic, what year did

Selma: 16:39

you say? That was Karen, we

Karen Kavanaugh: 16:41

convened the inaugural Innovation Lab, and that's just a fancy way of saying, we brought employers together with their peers to talk about this issue and to think about different solutions that they might design and then implement and test. So that was in 2022 2023 and then starting in late 2023 2024 and maybe a little fuzzy on this, we moved into the second phase with this group of employers to design a navigation program for their employee caregivers that we are in the home stretch with them. And then the next phase would be implementing and evaluating that a navigation program. And I can tell you how they got to navigation. So after spending a year, you know, discussing and thinking about and also learning from their employees, they decided that what they wanted to do is design and intervention that did a couple of things. One, it would help employee caregivers to access high quality, preferred and affordable services in a timely manner, to really help them do that, to take some of the load off of the employee caregivers, and to also provide that support by a highly trained navigator who understands the systems, understands insurance, Medicaid, Medicare, private insurance, understands supports, you know, in home and community Based Services, veteran services, understands the supports that are available through the disease specific organizations. And really, really this is crucial, understands the experience of providing care and to have someone who's consistent, who holds your story and holds your goals, who can walk with you and help you to navigate the systems, to access the supports you need and to be a coach, to sort of empower someone. These are not necessarily clinicians, although they would be trained such that if they felt someone needed that type of support, they could certainly recommend that and to help them with decision making. The third part of this that is really, really important is they will be embedded within the employer's organization so they will understand the benefit structures, the accommodations, and, importantly, the culture, so they can be a liaison as well to internal employer supports. And one of the quotes that I like to share from one of our employers was that this issue cannot only be owned by HR. It has to be organization wide. So so that is, that's the navigation program. In short, again, like I said, we are in the home stretch of finalizing that, and I should say also we are not. And the employers were really clear on this piece that they did not want to hire navigators and have them come in house. They really wanted to enhance local. Capacity and use local capacity. So there are a number of nonprofit organizations that have a history, years of history, providing navigation services, often to an aging population, or caregivers who are providing for an older adult. But also some of the disease specific organizations also have some of this expertise, and so the idea is to use community organizations. And then finally, there's one other aspect of this. We hypothesize that this will be effective for some employee caregivers, in some circumstances, at some periods during their caregiving trajectory, however, and as you all know, the main challenges to caregivers, whether employed or not, are is a huge systemic failure and cultural indifference. And I hope this is changing somewhat, but that is still the case. So can we get employers to see in a much more granular way, the connections between the system failures and what's showing up in their workplaces, because they're already paying for those system failures, and could they at the local level? Because this would be much more difficult to do at a national or even state level, but at a more local level, within a region, say, could they identify some of those barriers and then work with other stakeholders, healthcare providers, clinicians, home and community based services and social services to begin to change some of those barriers, at least, to begin with, within those again, within those specific geographic regions,

Zack Demopoulos: 21:47

that is quite an undertaking. These are six employers that have got to be so fortunate to be getting the benefit of your guidance and access to your experiences. This is amazing. What is maybe one pleasant surprise you've picked up in doing this work with these six employers they didn't expect to see. And then you kind of already mentioned the challenge that the six have in common, systemic and cultural. But maybe, what, maybe one other challenge that you're seeing,

Karen Kavanaugh: 22:17

well, a huge challenge now is, I'm going to point to the system again. It's a really unpredictable environment, and rising health care costs, rising premiums out of pocket costs, rising costs for employers, and you know that is really the benefit that they want to retain for their employees is really, really crucial. That complicates this right now, I would also say another surprise. Zach, yeah, I guess the surprise, yeah, these employers are still with us, like year three and a half four they, you know, and there were a few who had to drop out, but they because of the challenges that I just mentioned, but said that they wanted to come back in when it was time to implement and evaluate. So they were very, very committed to not only learning about this, but trying to do something and then evaluating it. They they really, really understood that.

Zack Demopoulos: 23:33

I was hoping you were going to say that I really do. Because you remember the reach organization, re a CH, they were the Northeast business group,

Karen Kavanaugh: 23:47

wasn't it? React. I'm sorry, react.

Zack Demopoulos: 23:49

Thank you. Yeah, organizations that were all involved in doing stuff like this, and some and I were inspired by this to do what we do now, but then I just kind of fizzle. So to hear that your six employers are actively involved in a committed is amazing. I love it.

Selma: 24:08

Just wondering, Karen, from your own personal care experience that you talked about initially, and then all of this research that you've been doing with the employers, what do you think is the most common misconception that employers have about the day to day reality that challenges their employee caregivers, and then on the flip side of that, what do you think caregivers have misconceptions about their employers? Because sometimes, and as we when we talk to a wealthy friend, employers are wanting and trying to do the right things to help support their employees through this caregiving process, but many times, that doesn't trickle down to that working caregiver that's in the trenches and. Be afraid to come forward. So what do you see on both sides of the coin there?

Karen Kavanaugh: 25:05

One thing is the variation in care. And I would say, you know, there's been a lot more traction around support, workplace supports for new parents, including child care, maternal and infant health, somewhat paid leave, which are all really, really important, and at least narratively, there is more conversation about the need to support employees who are caring for an aging parent or grandparent or friend. So I'm so glad you asked me this question, because it, it is my experience that what they often don't think about, though, is that there's, there's another huge swath of people often sandwiched but who are caring, for example, a partner or a spouse with a cancer diagnosis, a chronic condition, a mental health condition, and often, I would say those are caregivers who are most invisible or a substance use disorder. Those employee caregivers may not really, even if you have a culture that supports care may not want to disclose because there's still stigma there. So the variation in care is, I think it is important, and I know that that's something that employers say, Yeah, I don't want to come up with six different approaches. And I hear that, but likely what we will need are effective a suite of effective support, not just one or two things, because of the variation in care, but also the variation in industry sectors, right and in geographic locations, and then for employee caregivers, it's a great question. Selma, and I think, because the experiences are so personal, you know, I hesitate saying this, but if, if you have a strong relationship with a manager or supervisor, and you know, you don't have to disclose all of the details, but letting that person know can open up a pathway to internal employer supports and or accommodations and from from the

Selma: 27:34

employer model as well. One of the things that Zach and I kind of stumbled across in our work was that it's helpful if the leaders themselves are revealing their personal care stories and sharing yes down the line, and that creates, you know, more of an open environment where employees feel more comfortable coming forward.

Karen Kavanaugh: 27:57

Yes, absolutely, absolutely. That's a really important piece of organizational culture change.

Zack Demopoulos: 28:03

Yeah, the word empathy gets kicked around a lot, but truly, empathy is an is an important tool for managers to try to create those environments where somebody who might have that dual responsibility be able to share some you know, like you said, Karen, they don't need to reveal all the mess that they did that they're dealing with. But do you have in your work experience or lived experiences, any suggestions for a manager who's listening in right now, what should they do more to try to create

Karen Kavanaugh: 28:35

that environment? So one thing they can do is just if they haven't had their own experience, learn more about the experience. And you know, there's lots and lots of good resources out there, including your podcast. There's a lot of good podcasts. There's some amazing books. I just want to give a shout out to Alison Apple bombs book that came out last year. Stand By Me, there are a lot of memoirs, and even today, just today in The New York Times, there's an interview with one of the reporters who wrote an opinion piece about caring for her father that I believe was published maybe in November or December, and now they're coming back and doing an interview with her. So it's not too difficult to find a number of different stories. And I think, I think the stories are really you don't have to read an academic study, read the stories. And, you know, stories by different people caring for different people with different types of conditions. I think those are really important. And then I would say, pay attention. You know that? I mean managers, if they're a good one, are already doing that. But just like paying attention to what's showing up, and then be proactive and find out what types of. Supports are actually available, because I think it's really, I think organizational culture is so important, manager supervisor training is really critical. But if, if those managers and supervisors have no concrete supports to then offer, I mean, and I am not, you know, undermining an empathetic, deep, listening ear, but, but often an employee, caregiver needs some concrete supports. So, so that's really important. 100% we agree and then, and then to push up, right? To put it, if they don't find it, to push up,

Zack Demopoulos: 30:40

yeah, many times Selma and I get asked to do a webinar. We don't mind doing an educational webinar, but we cringe a little bit because what if you have an employee listening to a great webinar, and then they go to their manager and they want to throw all this stuff on the manager, and then you haven't prepared, like you said, haven't given that strong support to the manager, yeah, that would be a disaster, to be

Karen Kavanaugh: 31:05

honest, right? Yes, yeah, yes, yeah.

Selma: 31:09

So in this environment that we're in with, what is it? 10,000 people reaching the age of 65 every day in this country, and the need for care is growing exponentially every day, and the people that are available to do the care is shrinking drastically every day. Like, what? Where do you find the hope? Where do you find hope in this care space, in the hope to continue to do this work?

Karen Kavanaugh: 31:38

Okay, again, I'm gonna elevate and highlight the employers we have been working with. And I don't, I absolutely believe that there are many other employers just like them. It's a really challenging time, right? I'm going to give you an answer that might not, might seem a little bit off topic, but what is going to happen? What is going to been happening in Minneapolis gives me, in terms of the community response, so much hope. People are caring with a capital C for their neighbors and for their community, and they are not stopping. That is what caregiving is, right? I mean, I know it can be incredibly difficult, and I know some people take on the role because there are no other choices, and I very well aware of the, you know, significant negative outcomes that can accrue from providing care, but or I should say, and it is an incredibly meaningful experience for so many people, underscoring interconnectedness,

Zack Demopoulos: 32:56

it's well said. Thank you for sharing that. And that's not off topic. You know, anytime the word care is involved. It is on topic and your honor, right?

Selma: 33:06

Well, you just emphasize what we often emphasize in, you know, newsletters and our communications, our blogs and everything, is that caregiving is a joint effort. It is a community effort. It's not something that you can do alone. Even though many of us go into the journey thinking we can do it all ourselves, we quickly learn we have to have, you know, support system to to do it successfully. And it's no there's no shame in that. In fact, there's power and empowerment asking for help.

Karen Kavanaugh: 33:41

Yes, and also all of the solutions that are actually going to be needed are, they're systemic, they're not individual solutions. They're, they're not, you know, we'll just cope a little bit better, no, and, and they require, you know, different sectors. I am going to quote someone whom I'm forgetting the attribute, but that it's not so much that the systems were poorly designed, is that they weren't designed at all. And so this is an opportunity. You know, we need long term care supports and services. We need long term care financing. We need home and community based services. We need institutions nursing homes, that where people feel comfortable going and where family members feel comfortable taking somebody and you know, and a lot of care by family caregivers also occurs there.

Zack Demopoulos: 34:42

Yeah, yeah, yeah. We need more advocates. You know, I hate to say that, but we need more advocates. Shout out to Susie singer Carter, who is a huge nursing home advocate, who has done a three part documentary series. She was one of our guests. So shout out to you, Susie, keep doing what you're doing. We need more. Advocates. My last question for you, Karen, I was so encouraged, and I felt great when you said you believe there are employers out there that want to do more. Because when you talk to employees, a lot of them, unfortunately, don't feel that way. You know, they're like, I wish my company had done this. So as a kind of party message for my end here, could you just give some encouragement to those employers who are listening right now? An HR leader, a people leader, what are two quick, practical, easy steps they should be taking now to at least get in the right direction

Karen Kavanaugh: 35:37

right now, look at all of your policies and accommodations and adjustments through a caregiving lens. And see, you know that, would that help? Would it not and what are, what are the how do you access those benefits and supports? Are there barriers to actually doing that? I know many of your other guests have said, you know, survey your employees to find out what it is that would be helpful that really is important. Another piece, I think, is just bringing in the resource to help connect people to external supports and services. Just bring them in, have them do presentations. They can ask, does somebody, if somebody needs help with this? You know, they can give them a link or an email address, so, you know, to protect privacy, but you know right away they can do that. There are community organizations that are out there who can come in and help with that. And then really thinking about your communications to your workforce, and really thinking about how you might show and demonstrate that you understand that caregiving is a lifespan issue and that most Many employers are going to have that experience. Some might even have that experience more than once and and that you want to support it just like supporting a new

Zack Demopoulos: 37:08

parent, it's rare we get somebody with deep research and lived experiences like yourself. But I just got to ask you, you just listed, easily, four, I think steps there were you could take that are easy to be honest. But can I ask you, and I want to leave this on a positive note. I'm not looking for a negative but I want to ask you, why do you think, though employers are doing some of these

Karen Kavanaugh: 37:30

steps, I do think that there is still an awareness issue. I am going to agree with Lindsay. It's a bandwidth issue, and it's especially a bandwidth issue. Now this issue gets crowded out by other concerns. Thank you.

Selma: 37:46

Thanks for sharing that. Can you just share with our audience how they can learn more about your work and how they can connect with you?

Karen Kavanaugh: 37:55

So we have an archived working while caring website. If you go to the Rosalind Carter Institute, you just have to do RCI working while caring, and that'll take you there that that has all the reports and some other resources. And if you want to get in touch with me, feel free to put my email in the show notes.

Zack Demopoulos: 38:18

Okay, okay, with your permission. Just, Thank you, Karen. You're, you're just a valuable advocate and resource to the 63 million caregivers out there. So thank you.

Karen Kavanaugh: 38:30

Well, thank you too as well. And I'd, I'd love to ask you questions at some point, so I hope we can now. I mean, you both have such a wealth of expertise too, so I'd love to know, like, what gives you hope and

Zack Demopoulos: 38:49

do this. Let's do this. We haven't had a guest ask us a question. Let's do it. Let's keep it wrong. You Karen, and Selma is going first, but go ahead, Karen,

Karen Kavanaugh: 38:58

so yeah, please tell me, like, what? What gives you hope?

Selma: 39:04

Well, I tell you, what gives me hope is that as a caregiver, I've been, as you said, you mentioned that you can be in a caregiver situation more than once. And as you know, being from the Rosalynn Carter Institute, the four kinds of people, right, right? So I was caregiver for my mom for well over 10 years, and now I'm caregiver for my husband. So I've been a sibling caregiver and a spousal caregiver, and they're very different, and the power level is very different, and the interaction is very different, and the expectations are very different, but what gives me hope is that every day, from a personal standpoint, I know that I'm contributing to the quality of life of that individual, as well as those around who can benefit and. Learn from the experience. So I know that I'm I'm helping that person live a longer, happier existence, however long that may be. But if you look at it in the stream of things, none of us know how long that is for, for any of us, but I know that the work that I do in caring for you know my family member is helping them to have the happiness and a longer life than if I did not contribute to that. So that's what gives me hope. Is every day when someone you know wakes up in the morning and they're smiling and they're ready to go out and do it. That gives me hope.

Zack Demopoulos: 40:44

Yeah, how about you? Zach, I'll say two quick things that give me hope. One, since someone, I've been doing this now for like, the last seven years, you know, part time, but now full time, I have met some, some of the most amazing champions advocates in the caregiver space, some of the most amazing people, like like yourself, like Jason rosendez, like Susie singer, Carter, there are so, I mean, I can, I can name hundreds, to be honest. So there's an army out there that's just waiting and ready to do something about this. So that's given me hope, but in order for them to really do this, as you said, Karen, we need systemic changes and help. And what's given me hope there because I'm an eternal optimist, careful, eternal optimist. But what's given me hope is that I find there are more people when I talk about what I do that tell me their caregiver story that say, What are you talking about? I don't have a caregiver story, and that the numbers is going to tip the scale where we must make changes. And I'm sorry you politicians out there, your voters, we're talking about your voters, and they're the ones that you're going to be voting you in, and you better be listening to their concerns. There's quite a few, 63 million. Is about four or five states added together, that we need to be listening to their voice more and more, becoming seen more and more, becoming heard. I just hope that some and I are still around when we're able to say yes, that changes around change has been made, but that's a great question. Yes, same, same. Thank you so much for asking us that.

Karen Kavanaugh: 42:26

And there was one other piece that we didn't talk about, that employers should be thinking about, and that is anticipatory grief and bereavement.

Zack Demopoulos: 42:34

Yeah, part of the journey without a doubt. We've had Leslie Weirich on on our podcast, and she's fantastic grief counselor. It speaks on grief. Yeah, we hope to also, in the future, get a couple of other grief, grief experts. That is extremely important, Karen, we talk holistically when it comes to the caregiver journey, pre, during and post. Without a doubt, that's great. Yeah. And when we say grief, we're not just talking about the care recipient, talk about the caregiver role, right? Yeah. And we even do a little career counseling. We've been telling almost every caregiver that we speak to, if you're not putting on your resume, on your LinkedIn profile, that you were a caregiver and these were the skill sets that you were doing, that you are missing great opportunities because you're valuable. I know, yeah, thank you so much for your time. Karen, what a pleasure.

Karen Kavanaugh: 43:27

Thank you. It was so lovely to talk to you both and Zach, I hope you you get some time now to celebrate your birthday. Thank you so much.

Jodi Krangle: 43:37

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