The Caregiving Reality Check: Inside Today’s Workforce
Not a member and interested in attending? Contact Emily Commer!
Caregiving touches every workplace — with millions of employees supporting aging parents, children, partners, and other loved ones. As caregiving needs rise, employers have a unique opportunity to better understand and support the caregivers in their workforce.
Join Dr. Allison Applebaum, leading caregiving expert and author of Stand By Me: A Guide to Navigating Modern, Meaningful Caregiving, and Kim Thiboldeaux, NEBGH’s CEO, for a practical conversation about the emotional, financial, and workplace pressures today’s caregivers face. U.S. employees now spend an average of 27 hours each week on family caregiving — often on top of full-time jobs.
You’ll gain insight into:
- The growing impact of caregiving on employee wellbeing, productivity, and retention
- The unique challenges of the sandwich generation, balancing care for both children and aging parents
- The realities of modern caregiving — emotional strain, financial pressure, and time demands
- Innovative ways employers can foster a more supportive, flexible, and compassionate environment
Featured Speaker
Dr. Allison Applebaum
Dr. Allison Applebaum is a caregiving scientist, writer, researcher, speaker, and advocate. She is a Professor of Geriatrics and Palliative Medicine and the Director of the Steven S. Elbaum Family Center for Caregiving at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai. She was previously the Founding Director of the Caregivers Clinic at Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center, the first program of its kind in the United States to provide comprehensive psychosocial care to family members and friends of patients who are in the caregiving role. Dr. Applebaum’s program of research focuses on the development and dissemination of supportive services for family caregivers. She has published over 100 articles, reviews, and book chapters on these topics, and is the editor of the textbook Cancer Caregivers (Oxford University Press, 2019). Dr. Applebaum has received competitive funding for her research, including awards from the National Cancer Institute, the National Institute of Nursing Research, and the American Cancer Society. She is also the author of the recently published narrative nonfiction book, Stand By Me: A Guide to Navigating Modern, Meaningful Caregiving (Simon Element, 2024).
With
Kim Thiboldeaux - CEO
Kim Thiboldeaux is a seasoned, passionate health care leader with experience in both the private and non-profit sectors, spanning multiple disease areas and health care topics including HIV and AIDS, organ transplant, oncology, caregiving, patient navigation, and health equity.
Kim served as CEO of the Cancer Support Community (CSC) for 20 years, from 2000-2020, leading a global nonprofit network that operates at 175 locations, including CSC and Gilda’s Club centers, and in multiple hospitals and cancer clinics. Combined with a toll-free Helpline, a Research Institute, and a DC-based Policy Institute, Kim grew this network of professionally-led services five-fold during her tenure. In her last year as CEO, the organization provided more than $50 million in free support and navigation services to patients and families.
Kim’s service includes appointments to the nation’s premier health care panels and boards. In 2019, Dr. Francis S. Collins, Director of the National Institutes of Health, appointed Kim to the Novel and Exceptional Technology and Research Advisory Committee. This panel is focused on providing advice and serving as a transparent forum for discussion of the scientific, safety, and ethical issues associated with emerging biotechnologies. In 2017, Kim was appointed to serve on the Biden Cancer Initiative’s Board of Directors.
In serving as a patient advocate on these high-profile boards and panels, Kim has brought attention to inequities in our health care system. In 2019, she joined Navajo Nation President Jonathan Nez, Dr. Jill Biden, and leaders of the Tuba City Regional Health Care Corporation in Arizona to mark the opening of the first-ever full-time cancer and support center on an American Indian Reservation. Kim helped convene key Navajo Nation leaders, private sector supporters, and other officials to establish this culturally-adapted program located in an area larger than the state of West Virginia. That work led to the opportunity to develop a full-length, feature documentary, Navajo Nation USA, about the cancer center and the triumphs and challenges of the Navajo people. Kim is Executive Producer and Writer on the film (www.NavajoNationUSA.com).
In 2020, Stand Up To Cancer appointed Kim to its Equity Breakthrough Research Review Team, focusing on cancers affecting underrepresented populations. In 2019, the International Psychosocial Oncology Society presented Kim with the President’s Community Award for Distinguished Contributions at its Global Congress in Canada.
Kim has led numerous other initiatives to help patients and families in need. Most notably, she launched an emergency fund in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic that provided financial relief grants to thousands of patients affected by the economic downturn and expanded the organization’s professionally-staffed Helpline as the call volume nearly doubled. In addition, as part of a two-year collaboration she led with Airbnb, more than 3,000 patients in need were provided free housing while traveling for treatment.