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May 12Liked by Denise Brown

I will be attending a few virtual meetings this week - an accountability group for my patients and caregivers business, a public consultation for a national caregiving strategy (Canada), and and info session for an advocacy organization for immunocompromised patients.

These opportunities have come about through participating in other groups and webinars - as well as seeing these and other things promoted on social media.

I will be sure to connect with a few more people! Thanks for writing this - I'm going to add an overview of upcoming events to my weekly printed organizer and not just leave things on my google calendar. I am finding that mapping things out on paper is more helpful for me.

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Love this, Beth!! Keep us posted!

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May 19Liked by Denise Brown

Lots of learning this week for sure. The accountability groups I am in (also one for writing) are going well. I am slowly moving the needle I think. It's difficult when you are still caregiving. My situation isn't as intense as others, but the being on-call and frequent interruptions are make concentration more difficult.

The other meetings went alright - I have learned these things aren't for me, at least at this time. I find them really frustrating because I feel like I'm on a different planet a lot of the time. The caregiving strategy one for example was completely focussed on 'working' caregivers and the goal seems to be to keep people working rather than to focus on helping people first so they can work (if that makes sense). The help is often tied to employment rather than the person who is also a caregiver.

Anyway ... other opportunities came up this week so I am thankful to my past self for getting the ball rolling in a variety of different organizations. I found these others by participating - the accountability group has been helpful for this. I also found that I am getting better at finding the organizations I want to participate in, so that's a great outcome as well.

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I understand the frustration with your meetings. I actually attend few meetings focused on talking about the caregiving experience in favor of meeting with individuals to actually implement solutions. I also spend a lot of time outside the caregiving space because I find it more helpful to connect with others who aren't attached to an agenda or an ego. (Agendas and egos can go hand-in-hand and are a huge challenge. I believe it's one of the reasons family caregivers still suffer so much. We aren't making progress because we have too many egos sucking up our energy to grab the attention.) Thanks for keeping us posted, Beth. Your tenacity is paying off!

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May 19Liked by Denise Brown

Meeting with one person is a good strategy. I also like the idea of getting outside the caregiving space more often. I have another group I'm just getting started in that has nothing whatsoever to do with healthcare and caregiving!

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Because we're all impacted by a caregiving experience, you'll also gain insights and connections outside the space that will be helpful with your work inside the space.

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This is what I'm starting to see. The other group has a fair number of entrepreneurs and a fairly successful podcaster who has offered advice and assistance on podcasting to the group. It's nudged me into showing up to write for my own website more so I can get things moving, whether I do my own podcast or have more credibility to be a guest on others' podcasts.

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