Caregiver Groups are BACK!
December 1, 2024
I’m excited to announce that I am restarting my support/study groups for caregivers of aging loved ones in 2025. These groups are geared towards anyone who is directly caring for or starting to navigate care decisions for aging loved ones. If you came out of your Thanksgiving visit home wondering “How are we going to take care of Mom?”, you’re in the right place.
I often hear from client caregivers about how isolated and unprepared they feel to take on these new responsibilities. You are suddenly asked to take on big medical and financial decisions and navigate complicated family dynamics with little or no support. You are asked to make almost unbearable tradeoffs that make no one happy. It can be lonely and exhausting. Folks who are taking on this role are often described as being the ‘sandwich generation’, because they are caring for children and their aging parents or partners at the same time (and often during their key career years). I’d suggest that it’s not just a light fluffy sandwich, but that it feels more like living with your head in a George Foreman grill, getting squeezed into a panini. And it’s time for us Panini People to unite!
How it works
Each month, I will start a new group of 5-8 participants. The group will meet four times over Zoom, 6:00-7:30 pm CST on Tuesday nights. The group will also set up a simple platform for ongoing communication, like WhatsApp or Marco Polo. We will use the book Being Mortal by Atal Gawande as our source text, but there’s no pressure to read the full book. Each session, we’ll discuss key concepts from the book and also have time to discuss the real issues participants are dealing with.
After the four-week starter series is over, the group will decide how they want to stay in touch. You can continue to meet in person or via Zoom. You can have me pop in occasionally to facilitate the group, or can just take turns facilitating. Or you can simply choose to stay in touch via text. When one of the group members hits a hard spot with their loved one, they can reach out to other group members for extra support and comfort.
After you have finished the four-week starter series, you are also invited to periodic meetups with me and participants from other groups, via Zoom or in person in Austin, TX. I will bring in a speaker or special topic occasionally, but mostly these will be informal gatherings to chat with others who are in the same boat.
Another option…Build Your Own Group (BYOG)!
For some of you, conversations about elder caregiving may already be popping up in your friend groups or family. If so, I invite you to gather your own group of 3-10 people. The process will be the same - we’ll schedule four sessions at a mutually convenient time, incorporate BEING MORTAL, and plan how you can continue to support each other after the initial series is done.
Cost
Each starter series of four meetings is $300 per person. If fewer than five people sign up for a given month, we may postpone the start until the following month, to gather more participants. If you opt for building your own group, the cost is a $1200 flat fee for the whole group for the four-meeting series. Contact me for scholarship information, if cost is a barrier.
Register today for January and February groups!
Contact me for more information or questions.
