First things first: Congrats to our new WNBA Champions, the Golden State Valkyries! 💜
🏀 🏈 Second, while I love basketball, I've actually been counting down the days to another season: November. Why? Because November is National Family Caregivers Month, and National Family Caregivers Month is my Super Bowl 🏈 (I know I’m mixing sports metaphors here, but stick with me). The Caregiver Action Network theme this year, "Care Connects Us", is the perfect lead-in to our Can-do Caregivers Fall Sprint!
Here's who’s out on the field:
📊 63M+ Americans (~1 in 4 adults) are family caregivers, up 45% since 2015.
⏰ Nearly 1 in 4 provide 40+ hours of care every week. That's a full-time job most of us were never trained for.
💼 6 in 10 adults are holding down an actual paid job at the same time.
As a longtime caregiver for my mom, I know this experience all too well. That's why I wrote The Family Healthcare Playbook: it's the action plan and toolkit I wish I'd had when I first started on this journey. My motto: Stay Ready, So You Don't Have to Get Ready. 💪🏼
🙌🏼 3 ways to show up this month:
1️⃣ Help a friend who’s caregiving. Make a specific offer vs. "let me know if you need anything." For example, "Can I sit with your loved one while you go for a walk?" or "Can I help with the pharmacy run this week?" "Can I take the kids for a playdate?"
2️⃣ Start your family’s Personal Medical Fact Sheets: Take 20 minutes and jot down everything you know about your "healthcare house": List the names of doctors, specialists, emergency contacts, family illnesses, medications and allergies. Make copies of your insurance cards and your durable power of attorney for healthcare.
3️⃣ Bring caregiving to work. If your company offers caregiver benefits, find out what they are and share these resources with your colleagues. If your company doesn't offer them, ask why not.
📍 The 💪🏼 Can-Do Caregiver's Fall Sprint 💪🏼 rolls through Houston and the DMV this week!
🤠 Nov. 4–5: AFROTECH & HealthStack in Houston; I'll be on the ground at HealthStack learning about the latest and greatest in healthtech and AI, meeting with other caregivers, and selling a fresh batch of copies of The Family Healthcare Playbook!
⛪ Sat., Nov. 7 | Alfred Street Baptist Church in Alexandria, VA: I'm keynoting at Well-Being Ministry's Caregiving Conversations & Caregiving Basics program.
🍏 Sun., Nov. 8 | The Caregiving Agenda: Building Your Family Healthcare Playbook | Lakewood Country Club, Rockville, MD: I’ll be participating in a candid conversation about getting your healthcare house in order, estate planning, advocating at the hospital, and navigating caregiver stress.
🧡 💙 🔨 Nov. 10, 12, 13 | Caregiver’s Action Lab Build Edition with Lovable | Virtual: Join us for three (3) fun, low-stress Lovable Live Build sessions. Attend one, two, or all three sessions and get an Introduction to Lovable; a Live demo of new caregiving tools built with Lovable; and a hands-on workshop and open forum to build new caregiving tools in real time, whether you need a family medication tracker, a way to synthesize care notes, a task management system, or an app that helps you manage your stress and mental health at home.
🍎 Registration details for all of these events are in the comments below. NYC is up next in mid-November; stay tuned for more details!👇🏾 In the meantime, who's the caregiver you're celebrating this month? Tag them below so we can cheer them on!
#TheFamilyHealthcarePlaybook #NationalFamilyCaregiversMonth #LovableAmbassador #CareConnectsUs #Caregiving #FamilyCaregivers #SandwichGeneration