The Toronto Star – Finding a better way to balance careers with caring

She was preparing to return to her job with the federal government in Ottawa after the birth of her second child when Nicole Dauz got a call from her family doctor. Her daughter, Summer, just had her first-year check-up and the doctor wanted to refer her to a neurologist at the Children’s Hospital of Eastern Ontario.

Dauz is among the caregivers who are sharing their experiences in the workplace with the Canadian Centre for Caregiving Excellence (CCCE). Funded by the Azrieli Foundation, which invests in programs that help to empower people so they can achieve their best and contribute to society, the centre is conducting a project to study what needs to be done to create caregiver-friendly workplaces in Canada.

“Balancing work and caregiving is really hard,” said Liv Mendelsohn, executive director of the CCCE. “People want to give their absolute best to their workplace and their team, and they also want to give their best to their family, but workplaces and government policies are not set up to make it possible to do both.”