Dear Friends and Allies,

It's been too long since we sent one of these newsletters, and in that time, the way our country thinks about care has shifted significantly: most people now view care as a collective responsibility instead of an individual burden to be shouldered alone. COVID-19 has revealed the deep cracks in our care infrastructure, and has brought to the surface the many ways that deep structural racism embedded in our care systems harms the health and wellbeing of our Black community members, from the disproportionate toll of COVID-19 on Black families and astronomical rates of unemployment to ongoing police violence against Black people.

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In response to these continual injustices, there are renewed calls for strengthening our care infrastructure at every level, for all people. Our work -- grounded in fighting for collective solutions that will strengthen our care infrastructure and ensure we can all live and age with dignity -- has never been more important, and we've been busy these past few months! Read on for some highlights of how we've been working--alongside many of you--to create a more caring and just future for us all.

- Antonia and all of us at Caring Across


Caring Conversations

Caregiver Corners: Every Friday since April, we've been hosting virtual Caregiver Corners on Facebook Live, featuring guests who are helping caregivers to navigate life during COVID-19. From Roy Remer of the Zen Caregivers Project leading mindfulness trainings, to author Rachel Wilkinson Miller speaking about her book The Art of Showing Up, to care activists Elaine Shelly and Linda Ocasio discussing racism in nursing home care, our guests are rethinking what it means to care for others and for ourselves in this moment. Check out some of our past videos on our Facebook page, and tune in every Friday at 1 pm ET for more (and don't worry, you don't need a Facebook account to join in!).

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Dinner Table Conversations: Last month, our Policy Director Josie led a virtual "Dinner Table" conversation with friends and care policy leaders about women, race, racism, marginalization, and care that was open, tender, and raw. Stay tuned or reach out if you'd like to join or have ideas for a future dinner.

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#CareForAll Town Hall: Our April 26th "Who Is Caring For Us?" Town Hall brought together caregivers and activists to talk caregiving during COVID-19. Our director Ai-jen Poo, along with Alicia Garza of Black Future Labs, author Aminatou Sow, Natalie Gontcharova of Refinery29, Jennifer Olson of Rosalynn Carter Institute and Kristin Rowe-Finkbeiner of MomsRising spanned the personal and political. The forum also featured videos from caregiver activists posing questions to our panelists about what we need to do to build a more caring future.

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Family Care Relief and Recovery Act

Together with Representatives Joaquin Castro (D-TX) and Deb Haaland (D-NM), soon we'll be introducing the Family Care Relief and Recovery Act (FCRRA) to support those giving and receiving care during COVID-19 and beyond. The bill provides support for vulnerable family caregivers who were largely left out of the initial rounds of support for those caring for the most at-risk for COVID-19, and addresses the fact that many of the workers who should have been first in line to receive critical benefits like paid leave still don't have them.

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Time is running out for Congress to extend relief, and they must pass the FCRRA to reverse decades of systemic defunding of critical support services for the Caring Majority, and provide vulnerable family caregivers, essential workers, and people who need care with health protections, technical training, and financial support.

Of course, we know short-term relief isn't enough. COVID-19 has surfaced how inequitable and weak our care systems are, and how totally they must be transformed for us to create systems of care and safety that work for all of us. In the coming weeks, we'll be releasing a white paper laying out the case for how investing in our care infrastructure must be at the center of a just economic recovery and a priority for the next administration. If you have not already, get in touch with our policy team to sign on.


Building Care Leaders

We received a stunning 115 applications for our 2020 Care Fellowship program, which develops family caregivers around the United States as organizers, advocates, community-builders, and public speakers. The 6-month digital fellowship features an innovative mix of skill training, political education, organizing and advocacy action. This year the program will include Get Out the Vote efforts to help caregivers make their voices heard at the ballot box in November. We're looking forward to announcing our 2020 fellows soon!

In conjunction with our sister organization Hand in Hand, we hosted two anti-racism trainings for people in the Caring Majority. These shined a light on how our care infrastructure is rooted in systemic racism and provided an opportunity for people who give and receive care to learn, take action, and lead in centering anti-racism as we rebuild our care systems. We'll continue to host these trainings, so look out for an email from our Manager of National Organizing Vanessa if you'd like to join an upcoming session.

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[ send to: [email protected] ]

In the Field

Our partners at Take Action Minnesota are leading on how we reimagine care and safety in the wake of racist police violence against Black people. Check out their twitter for more ways to take action and to educate yourself on community reinvestment.

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Our partners at the Jane Addams Senior Caucus (JASC) in Illinois are working to pass the Senior Safety Ordinance, which they helped draft, to guarantee protections and high safety standards in all senior living residences in Chicago in the wake of COVID-19. Ordinances like these are essential to ensuring that seniors in our communities are cared for and safe, especially given the astronomical COVID-19 infection rates in nursing homes and other group living facilities. Check out this piece on the ordinance in the Chicago Tribune.

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Our partners at The New York Caring Majority are continuing to lead actions to protect and honor those affected by COVID-19. They held a number of protests at nursing homes and other facilities to support seniors and care workers, as well as helping to put on the #NamingTheLost Vigil to honor those we have lost to this devastating pandemic and leading the Elders for Black Lives rally calling to defund the NYPD. Check out this op-ed from member leader Bobbie Sackman on why we need to divest from the police and reinvest in senior services.

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Our partners at Maine People's Alliance created mainerstogether.com, a mutual aid network that helps people get assistance as well as facilitating access to unemployment insurance and other programs. They've welcomed over 1000 new volunteers to their network, and are working to understand why policies have left so many folks struggling and what we must call on electeds to fix during this time and beyond.

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ICYMI: In the News

Ai-jen interviewed our Organizing and Legislative Analyst, Aisha Adkins, in Refinery29, about caring for her mother during COVID-19. Says Aisha, "As a woman of color whose parents are high-risk, I worry about what happens if my parents get the coronavirus...how do I ensure my parents will receive the best possible care?" And our care activist Michelle Walton gave Jezebel a day-in-the-life portrait of being a caregiver under COVID-19, and talks about how resources are stretched - both at her home and in the healthcare system.

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Also in Refinery29, our Policy Director Josie and Development Manager Sade spoke about how COVID-19 has highlighted the childcare crisis, and how families need holistic care solutions that acknowledge the realities of the modern American family moving forward.

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Caregiver activist Paula Newbaker, as well as our Communications Director Janet Kim, were interviewed in this Wall Street Journal piece about family caregivers and the new stresses they are facing due to COVID-19. And Josie, as well as Aisha and former CARE Fellow Jeffery Kearney, were featured in this Washington Post piece on how COVID-19 hits millennial caregivers especially hard.

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Caring Across was featured in this article in Quartz about how the COVID-19 crisis mandates a rethinking of nursing homes, and how experts and leaders are uplifting care in communities and at home as a safer and more humane option.

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Finally, Universal Family Care was named as a finalist in Fast Company's World Changing Ideas Awards in the Politics and Policy Category. We are honored for UFC to be recognized in the company of revolutionary proposals to increase voters rights, improve sustainability, and to end homelessness. For more on Universal Family Care in the time of COVID-19, check out this op-ed written by our Co-Founder Sarita Gupta.

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On the Internet

In partnership with the National Academy for Social Insurance, we're hosting state virtual forums on how Universal Family Care can help states address their evolving care needs. This week, we held the first in the series with our partners at Take Action Minnesota -- stay tuned for California's forum in August and for more coming up.

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On July 2nd, Ai-jen spoke on a panel on the film Crip Camp, a Netflix documentary about a summer camp for teens with disabilities in the 1970s, held in conjunction with our sister organizations Hand in Hand and the National Domestic Workers Alliance. The discussion focused on how care worker rights and disability rights are inextricably linked, and must both be uplifted as we reimagine our care systems and care economies.

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Our Team is Growing!

In the past couple of months, we've welcomed three new members to our team:

Katie O'Connell, Digital Director

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Sarah Vitti, Culture Change Manager

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Ja-Rei Wang, Media Relations Manager

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We're in awe of how much our new staff have contributed to our work in such a short time, and we're so glad that they're part of the team that's helping to build a more caring future.

Share this link to spread the word, and if you have suggestions/questions/kudos, just hit reply.

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