🌻 Presentations for Support Groups

When someone is diagnosed with a serious illness, much of the attention understandably goes to the person who is sick. But illness also changes relationships, families, and everyday life for the people around them.

My presentations focus on those experiences.

I talk about caregiving, relationships, communication, treatment changes, intimacy, grief, identity, and the things that happen at home that may never come up during a medical appointment.

My own caregiving experience began when my husband was diagnosed with prostate cancer. Much of my work continues to support prostate cancer caregivers and their families, but many of the experiences we talk about are shared by people caring for someone with other cancers and serious illnesses as well.

Every Group Is Different

I learned that choosing a presentation begins with understanding who will actually be in the room.

Some support groups are primarily patients. Some include spouses, partners, family members, and caregivers. Others are specifically for caregivers.

The needs can also be very different depending on whether people are newly diagnosed, going through treatment, living with advanced disease, dealing with recurrence, or adjusting to life after treatment.

That is why I don't believe one presentation should be used for every group.

Before we choose a topic, I want to understand your group and what would be most useful to the people attending.

Who I Speak With

Patient Support Groups

These presentations focus on the experience of living with serious illness, including communication, relationships, independence, treatment changes, and what can happen at home after a diagnosis.

I don't try to tell patients what their illness feels like. I talk about the parts I know from living alongside serious illness and from the caregivers and families who have shared their experiences with me.

Patients and Caregivers Together

When patients attend with spouses, partners, family members, or caregivers, the conversation can look at what may be happening on both sides.

Sometimes two people are living through the same illness very differently and neither fully understands what the other is carrying.

These presentations create room to talk about those differences.

Caregivers, Spouses and Partners

Caregiver-only groups allow us to talk more openly about the caregiver experience.

Topics may include exhaustion, fear, changing roles, relationships, intimacy, resentment, grief, losing parts of your own life, asking for help, and caring for yourself while someone you love is ill.

Some of the Conversations We Can Have

Presentation topics are being developed around subjects such as:

The Hidden Role of the Caregiver
What happens when helping someone you love gradually becomes caregiving, and how that role can change your life and relationships.

When You're Both Scared, but Neither of You Says It
How fear, uncertainty, and attempts to protect one another can make communication harder after a diagnosis.

When Illness Changes the Relationship
What can happen when the roles of patient, partner, spouse, and caregiver begin to overlap.

When Hope and Grief Live in the Same House
How hope and grief can exist together during serious illness without requiring either person to pretend everything will be okay.

What Have You Put Aside While You've Been Caregiving?
A conversation about caregiver identity and the parts of life that can quietly disappear while caring for someone else.

When Being a Partner Suddenly Includes Intimate Care
A discussion about privacy, dignity, changing bodies, boundaries, and what happens when intimate caregiving enters a relationship.

Additional topics are available, and presentations can be adapted to the needs of your group.

More Conversation, Less Lecture

I don't want to spend an entire presentation talking at people.

Depending on the group, I may stop during the presentation and ask a question, invite people to share an experience, or give everyone something to think about before we continue.

No one is required to participate.

Some groups enjoy a lively conversation. Others prefer to listen and ask questions at the end. We can decide together what will work best for your members.

Request a Presentation

If you're interested in having me speak with your group, I'll ask you to complete a short presentation questionnaire.

It asks about who attends your meetings, where members are in their experience with illness or treatment, the issues they're currently facing, and the dates and times that work for your group.

I'll use that information to recommend a presentation and format that fit your audience.

[Request a Presentation]