Nicole Jarvis 
I’m Nicole Jarvis. I’m Assistant Director of Programs at Cancer and Careers, and I am also a licensed social worker, as I realize you can maybe see right here. I’d like to start off just by sharing just a little bit of history about Cancer and Careers. Since 2001 we’ve been at the forefront of balancing a cancer diagnosis with work. As I mentioned earlier, we’re a national nonprofit, and we are the only program of its kind that’s solely dedicated to empowering and educating people with cancer to thrive in their work environment. So just a little bit on how we got started: Cancer and Careers is an initiative of the CEW Foundation, which is the charitable arm of Cosmetic Executive Women, which is a trade association for the beauty and fragrance industry. So CaC was launched more than 22 years ago at this point, after five of CEW’s board members were diagnosed with cancer and facing the work-related issues that tend to come with it. Now, these women were very high up. They were leaders in their industry, heads of companies, glass ceiling breakers, and they really, really, really wanted to keep working, but they found that there was nowhere to go for the answers to many of the questions that they had, so they decided to create a program to help others who were experiencing these same challenges. Now on this slide, you can see, this is a list of the free programs and services that we offer. Our comprehensive website that’s available in English and Spanish is really the heart of everything we do. Anyone that’s been on it can see that there’s a ton of information on there. You can also find various support services on there, which include our resume review service and access to career coaches. We have educational blogs and news feeds that are really rich resources where those who’ve been diagnosed, as well as caregivers, employers and healthcare professionals can really stay current on topics that are related to work and cancer. We also offer a free publication library, which is available in both English and Spanish, really providing tangible and easy to digest information on working and looking for work after a cancer diagnosis. These are available in both hard copy and PDF formats, and they are free for order. And additionally, we offer numerous events each year, hour-long webinars and full day events. And I’ll touch a little bit on those in just a bit, but I do want to just start by taking some time, just to highlight some of the challenges around caregiving for someone with cancer, while trying to maintain and balance the many, often competing responsibilities that are separate from caregiving. So I want to just talk about something that many of you as caregivers may relate to. We know that caregivers of people diagnosed with cancer often find themselves confronting some very common misconceptions related to work that can be pretty difficult for them to counteract. Some of these misconceptions include that they don’t want to work, or they won’t be as productive because of their caregiving responsibilities, or that because they themselves are, “fine”, they don’t need any special consideration. Or they can easily compartmentalize or separate their jobs from their caregiving experience. Again, these are really, generally, misconceptions, which means that they’re largely faulty ideas and notions and also serve as barriers to understanding the full picture of an individual’s experience. So really, one of CaC’s goals is to show that there’s so much more nuance that can be involved with caregiving in the workplace than a lot of these misconceptions tend to allow for. And there was a report released by the ARP Public Policy Institute in 2020 that illustrated many of the caregivers shared experiences. So the majority of caregivers were managing work, either part-time or full-time while caregiving, and of those, many experienced an impact to their employment as a result of those responsibilities. Days off, cutting back work, hours and even leaves of absence, were all cited as the ways that they changed their approach to work while they were caregiving. Now this is, of course, not everyone, but it can be really validating to recognize that these are some of the ways that caregivers were balancing their work and caregiving responsibilities. And it can also be really tempting to try to keep everything status quo, but the reality is that when a loved one is diagnosed, the impact of that diagnosis is felt far beyond just that diagnosed individual. So it’s really important to recognize what those impacts are on caregivers in order to really strategize how to best address some of those associated challenges. And of course, you can’t really discuss the experience of caregiving without digging into some of the challenges that are associated. So from that same study from ARP that I mentioned, there were three primary struggles cited. The first was mental strain, so feelings of stress, guilt, anger, anxiety and so much more, were really prevalent among caregivers that were surveyed. It can often feel very frustrating for caregivers who wish that they could do more or control the situation better. There’s also the physical strain, so experiencing their own health challenges as a result of this new amount of emotional stress, but also some of the physical aspects, like less personal time in the day to address your self care, less sleep, more household tasks that you’re taking over, etc. And also, many caregivers are already dealing with health issues themselves. So what does it look like to balance your own with that of a loved one? Vicki said before, the “survivor caregiver”. Then there’s also the financial strain. It can be really challenging to plan for, since there’s no set timeline. This really comes into play when communicating with an employer on what will be needed and what the next month, quarter or year might look like for you. And it’s not uncommon to take on debt when caregiving as a result of medical bills. Loss of income from a partner, loss in income, if your work hours are cut or you need to take some time off, these are just to name a few ways that that happens. And similarly to identifying how caregivers handle their situations, it can also be validated to understand these common challenges that are associated with caregiving so as to not feel so alone, but also to give oneself some grace on the mental and physical responses to their situation. And of course, this is something that Imerman Angels could could really help with, in terms of just feeling like you have a community and you can relate to others. So just really important to keep in mind. So now that I’ve covered a little bit of that, I just want to touch on Cancer and Careers offering employees who are caregivers are often looking for supports that are very similar to those that people who are diagnosed are looking for. There’s a lot of overlap in some of those challenges. So one way that CaC addresses the issues around work in cancer, is through our educational programs. So here you can find some of our programs that are held throughout the year. Educational programs include our three full-day conferences each year. Our national conference is coming up on June 21, and this is virtual, so I would definitely encourage anyone who is interested in it to register. We also offer 12 “Balancing Work and Cancer” webinars that are presented live throughout the year on a monthly basis. We have one tomorrow, actually, about networking. If anyone’s interested in that, we do post the recordings on our website if you’re not able to attend the live session and we are now captioning them in Spanish, those recordings. We also provide in-service trainings for healthcare professionals. These are designed specifically for healthcare, or help professionals, who work with cancer patients that are facing issues around their diagnosis and employment. There will be two held virtually later this year. I’m not exactly sure of those dates as of yet. We also offer animated “How To” video series in English and Spanish, and we partner annually with the Harris Poll to conduct proprietary research initiatives that really inform everything we do. And we structure a lot of our programming around the results of those. We also provide supportive services to patients, caregivers, healthcare providers and HR professionals via a number of channels. This includes our “Ask a Career Coach” message board, which provides access to a roster of professional coaches who offer their insight and custom responses to each individual that poses a question or scenario. We currently do have a career coach/HR professional who was a caregiver himself, so his insight is really valuable in those responses as well. We offer a resume review service, which allows patients and survivors to submit their resume and receive personalized, tailored feedback by one of our professional career coaches. We also open this service up to caregivers whose careers have been impacted by a loved one’s diagnosis. So it’s not initially offered for caregivers, but we do make exceptions on case by case basis, and we also offer one-on-one calls with staff members, typically me. We take pride in being accessible. And the opportunity for someone to pick up the phone and get a live person on the other end of it is – the importance of that is not lost on us. And we also offer this in both English and Spanish. We have some staff members that speak Spanish as well. And then our English and Spanish language websites offer a wealth of information. As I mentioned, it’s a ton of information on there. So on all the issues related to the world of work and cancer. This includes hundreds of informational articles. As I mentioned, our blog and news feed, people can also learn how to explain gaps on their resume, prep for an interview, download job search tools and a lot more. It’s also the touch point for accessing the library publications which I mentioned, which provide a tangible and easy to digest way to really deliver key information to patients, survivors, healthcare professionals, and caregivers as well. And just mentioning again, these are in English and Spanish, and can be ordered for free in hard copy or downloaded. And I do also want to note that we are working on expanding our content and offering for caregivers. And while much of the information on our website is currently geared towards patients and provided with more of a patient lens, a lot of it is really applicable to caregivers as well. Since, as I mentioned, some of the challenges can be very similar. And I do want to point out that we will be doing a “Balancing Work and Caregiving” webinar in November that I will be hosting. So if you want to hear from me again, there’s your chance. And I do just want to leave off with this… There’s something called a “Caregivers Bill of Rights”. There’s the link to it at the bottom of this slide. And while the challenges of caregiving can feel really great, this is a selection that really provides some valuable reminders and affirmations. I encourage people to take a look at it, keep a copy of it, print it out, and just sort of look at it when you’re starting to feel overwhelmed and guilty and stressed, and it can provide both that validation and justification for how you’re feeling when you really need to have that with you. Things can get heavy. So as Meagan mentioned, we will have time, I think, for questions if there are any, but if not, this is my contact information for anyone who wants to reach out, and I’m happy to answer any questions either through email or over the phone.