Caregiving: The Unnoticed Role During the COVID-19 Pandemic

Channel U: Union Institute and University

In addition to being Women’s History Month, March was also Social Worker Month. In this special episode of Channel U, our host Alexis Glennon will speak with guest Jessica King McLaughlin about the role of caregiving in our society, how caregivers have been affected during the pandemic, and discuss potential policy solutions that could help caregivers.

Host Alexis Glennon, LCSW-R is a Core Faculty and Field Director at Union Institute & University within the Bachelor of Science in Social Work program and a Doctor of Social Work student at the University at Buffalo. She is also a Research Fellow in the Robert Wood Johnson Social Work Health Futures Lab. Her research area is digital literacy skills for social workers and the social work profession's role in tech justice. Along with her academic appointments, Alexis has a private practice specializing in treating trauma and the clinical assessment and application of digital literacy skills for clients.

Our guest is Jessica King McLaughlin. She is a Ph.D. candidate at the Graduate School of Social Work at the University of Denver. Jessica earned her undergraduate degree from Emory University and her master’s in social work from Boston College. Jessica is a licensed clinical social worker and has worked as an in-home therapist and in community mental health with children and families, and, most recently, as a medical social worker in a hospital setting. Presently, Jessica is an assistant researcher with the Paul Freeman Financial Security Program in the Knoebel Institute for Healthy Aging and an adjunct professor at the University of Denver. Jessica's clinical work with multigenerational families motivates her research interests in dementia, financial well-being across the life span, informal working caregivers, and workforce policy implications for caregiver burden.