Caregiver Teleconnection

Sheila Warnock
Sheila has spent most of her professional life in advertising as a Consultant/Associate Creative Director with an expertise in new product development. After 30 years of dedicating her life to this profession, several profound experiences changed her life. First, she became sole caregiver of her ill mother and an emotional crutch for her best friend, Susan, who was diagnosed with cancer. By undertaking this dual role, Sheila truly experienced the tremendous burden caregivers have to endure. In 1988, she became part of a group of 12 women (mostly strangers to each other) who came together and stayed together for the next three and a half years to care for friend Susan. The contrast of caring for someone without support to the experience of sharing responsibilities with a group proved to Sheila that this new collaborative approach to caregiving was something of immeasurable value and needed to be shared with caregivers everywhere. As a result, she and her co-author, Cappy Capossela, documented the systems used by the group in their book, Share The Care, How To Organize A Group To Care For Someone Who Is Seriously Ill, Simon & Schuster, 1995. This system guides friends, neighbors, co-workers, and acquaintances with the roadmap for creating and maintaining a “caregiving family” to support someone they know facing a health, aging, medical issue or any circumstance were support is needed including multiple births, or grandparents raising small children.