Women's History Month: The Women Who Inspire Us
March is Women’s History Month. This idea of a blog post where caregiving experts share stories of the women who inspire them has been brewing since last March.
I cast a net out to fellow caregiver advocates and to the Happy Healthy Caregiver community. I gave little instruction, on purpose. I just told them this could be a woman only they know or a person we all know. It’s interesting to me that almost all of these are individuals in our immediate circle, particularly our mothers.
I hope you enjoy these stories while being introduced to some amazing family caregivers and advocates.
How Our Female Family Members Inspire Us
Elizabeth Miller is a family caregiver, caregiver advocate, speaker, author, podcast host, and Certified Caregiving Consultant. Her personal experiences caring for aging parents with chronic and terminal illnesses and for a sibling with developmental disabilities inspired her to create Happy Healthy Caregiver in 2015.
Theresa Wilbanks cared for her father until his passing at 99 years of age. During that time, she experienced the raging river of emotions that comes with caring for a family member. Overwhelmed and drowning, she navigated toward a more sustainable caregiving experience. Theresa founded Sustainable Caregiving and works with fellow family caregivers to help them navigate their caregiving journey. With humor and vulnerability, Theresa shares her story and strategies in her book, Navigating the Caregiver River: A Journey to Sustainable Caregiving.
Susanne White is the founder of Caregiver Warrior. She was blessed with the opportunity to care for her parents and ventured out on a caregiving journey that would change her life. She shares her experience, strength, and hope with others on her website and social platforms so that they too may survive caregiving with grace and empowerment.
Mike Barnes was an award winning sportscaster in Austin, Texas for almost 30 years. He now teams up with his wife to coach people to communicate better, either on camera or for public speaking. And his newest passion project is called Parenting Aging Parents. It is a Facebook group and website devoted to helping adult children who are caregivers for their parents. Mike and his wife have interviews with experts and a forum for advice and a place to vent as people try to navigate these tough roads of caring for a parent.
Angie is an occupational therapist that is teaching caregivers how to maximize their effectiveness at home by using a therapeutic approach in everyday activities that will make their loved one stronger and more independent so that, both caregiver and loved one experience freedom and opportunity to live a life without regrets. Learn more at Angie’s LInkedIn.
Paula Muller, PhD is the founder of Sociavi. A product to keep those aging in place and their families connected. She has a lifelong passion for technology applied to healthcare beginning with her M.S. in Biomedical Engineering in Chile working with the blind, then her work in Switzerland analyzing EEGs to prevent epileptic seizures, followed by her Ph.D. and Post-doc work at Rutgers with Parkinson patients, and later at Authentidate with Telehealth products and services.
Paula is Certified Alzheimer’s Disease & Dementia Care Training (CADDCT) and Certified Dementia Practitioner (CDP), and volunteers as a bilingual Community Educator for the Alzheimer’s Association.
How Women In Our Communities Inspire Us
Heather Zoccali is the Founder and Program Director of No Barriers Caregiver Program, whose mission is to encourage and provide tools for critical and often-forgotten self-care, and individual empowerment in order to live a No Barriers life.
Lucinda Koza is the founder and CEO of I-Ally, a community-driven app that saves millennial family caregivers time, reduces stress, and enables informed decision-making by providing services that fulfill their unique needs. With a background both as an actor who premiered a film at the Cannes Film Festival in 2016, as well as a digital strategist who managed online content for DiversityInc, she was spurred to action when she found herself becoming her father’s sole caregiver in 2018.
Margo Rose is the author of: Body Aware Grieving, A Fitness Trainer’s Guide to Caring For Your Health During Sad Times. She hosts a podcast called: Body Aware Living and shares articles and videos about skillful self-care.
Perhaps after watching these videos, you are moved to reflect on the women who have inspired and shaped who you are. Share your story with your circle of friends and family to give them a glimpse into your history. We all have a powerful history (or HERstory) worth sharing.
