Working Caregivers and Labour Market Changes – A Café Conversation With Stakeholders

“There are four kinds of people in the world — those who have been caregivers, those who are currently caregivers, those who will be caregivers, and those who will need caregivers” – Rosalyn Carter

On October 24, 2013 in Toronto, Canada, the International Federation on Ageing (IFA) co-hosted a high-level meeting alongside the Cyril & Dorothy, Joel & Jill Reitman Centre for Alzheimer’s Support and Training to discuss the complex question of how to provide support to working caregivers.  The meeting brought together policy experts, representatives from relevant NGOs, industry, academia, and caregivers themselves to create a dialogue and gain an understanding of the challenges faced by working caregivers, the way these challenges are worsened or ameliorated by a changing labour market, and ultimately to discuss the prospect of creating an intervention for working caregivers that is effective and scalable.

In order to best achieve its intended objectives, the Café Conversation was structured as an open discussion; an homage to the World Café model, in which all participants can contribute equally and openly. Participants were divided into individual tables with 6-8 people at each and then prompted with leading questions to facilitate discussion. Inevitably, the responses to the leading questions were dynamic and transformative, sometimes veering off into unanticipated areas, and sometimes provoking the creation of new questions altogether. Still, each question covered unique territory and the design of these questions enabled the diverse array of delegates to bring their respective sets of expertise to the discussion, creating an insightful, thoughtful, and productive conversation.

To summarize the day’s findings, a report was created to serve as a summary. The full report can be accessed by clicking [here]