How We Set Up Our Internet Charity for Family Caregivers
March 4, 2013
Hosted by Dr. Gordon Atherley
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Guest Information
Episode Description
Mary Bart is founder and Chair of an Internet-based registered Canadian charity operating as Caregiving Matters,www.caregivingmatters.ca.Chris Kata is Director, Caregiving Matters, to which he brings his internet marketing expertise. They both describe their experiences of family caregiving. Mary says why Caregiving Matters was created. Chris says why he became involved. Mary talks about the steps in creating it. They explain why they established it as a registered internet charity. They discuss its work and the roles and importance of volunteers. Chris explains how the internet is used as a way of honoring a loved one named by a grieving family in a donation to a charity. They discuss the challenges in setting up a charity. They share their advice for others wanting to do something similar. They both say what they want to do and to see done to promote charitable activities among family caregivers. They share their messages to family caregivers interested in charitable work.
Family Caregivers Unite!
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Family caregivers are the people who provide care to partners, parents, children, brothers, sisters, cousins, friends, neighbors and even co-workers. They are the people who provide care when everyone else has gone home. They are the people who organize the functioning of the home for the person with special needs, and for the family as a whole. They are the coordinators of care, the managers of appointments, the preventers of loneliness, and the makers of decisions even to the point of Power of Attorney. And they are so often people who themselves are burdened with their own health challenges and who may be in only marginally better health than the persons to whom they are providing family caregiving.
Dr. Gordon Atherley
Dr Gordon Atherley holds the British equivalent of the Canadian PhD and MD degrees, and LLD, Honoris Causa, from Canada’s Simon Fraser University. His awards include Fellow of the Royal Society of Arts, UK. His medical specialties are occupational medicine and public health.
As first President and Chief Executive Officer of the Canadian Centre for Occupational Health and Safety, the Canadian equivalent of the US National Institute of Occupational Safety and Health, he led the creation of Canada’s electronic information service in occupational health and safety, now used in more than 40 countries.
In academia, he held senior, tenured, full-time positions, including departmental chair, in university faculties of physics, engineering, and medicine. He is the author of a textbook and numerous articles and publications.
Since retiring from medical practice, he’s built up Greyhead Associates, which critically researches the safety, effectiveness and fairness of health services for persons with special needs.
Through Virtual Care International, a company of which he’s President, he’s involved in providing sensible technology to family caregivers to help them with their responsibilities, workloads, and concerns.
Now an activist, he urges family caregivers to unite because, more and more, it’s not just their families who depend on them, it’s also the healthcare system as a whole, as it struggles to meet more and more needs of more and more people.
