Update: Jane Gross emailed me on the Fourth of July to enthusiastically invite “your readers — direct care workers, supervisors or anyone else” to contribute to her blog. This is a great opportunity to talk to long-term care consumers and family members about the challenges and rewards and importance of direct-care work. Maybe we can raise a little consciousness, even recruit some valuable allies for the quality care through quality jobs movement. — Elise A new blog by New York Times health writer Jane Gross (pictured) provides a fascinating window into the world of family caregivers, including their thoughts about direct-care workers.

Update: Jane Gross emailed me on the Fourth of July to enthusiastically invite “your readers — direct care workers, supervisors or anyone else” to contribute to her blog. This is a great opportunity to talk to long-term care consumers and family members about the challenges and rewards and importance of direct-care work. Maybe we can raise a little consciousness, even recruit some valuable allies for the quality care through quality jobs movement. — Elise
A new blog by New York Times health writer Jane Gross (pictured) provides a fascinating window into the world of family caregivers, including their thoughts about direct-care workers.


Norman DeLisle, MDRC
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Just...talk

I am 28 years old.

It took me 28 years to figure something out. Something rather simple.

That simple thing is this: to have a conversation with someone, I just have to open my mouth and say whatever I’m thinking.

Sounds ludicrous that it took me so long to figure out that, doesn’t it? And yet it’s true.

That truth hit me like a spiritual revelation this summer. I was walking on my lunchbreak, with a coworker, to the corner pizza shop, and noticed myself thinking about the appearance of the fountain on the square. And without thinking about it, I opened my mouth and said what I was contemplating.

And my coworker responded with a comment.

And we had a conversation.

And that was it.

Alright, maybe someone out there is laughing. Go ahead, because yeah, it’s rather absurd that this was a revelation.

But it’s true–for the previous 28 years, I had thought that the way to have a conversation with a casual acquaintance was to think up something to say. It was very freeing to realize I didn’t have to put all that work into chatty conversations, after all.

Proactive Mad with Krystal Klarity

I was sitting in a public place yesterday and could not help but hear a conversation that was taking place between to people acting out their assigned roles. I feel so more in tune with this since I have been on both sides of this experience as a ‘helper’ and also as the one being ‘helped. It has given me a more complete view of the total experience you might say. Although I must admit I was more on the side of the ‘helped’ than the helper even before I got psychiatrized myself for seeing what ‘others’ (who are usually the ones helping to reduce my awareness for me) did not see.