The Paid Leave Podcast

Supporting Healthier Communities for Older Adults and Families

• The Connecticut Paid Leave Authority • Season 4 • Episode 10

Share episode

Use Left/Right to seek, Home/End to jump to start or end. Hold shift to jump forward or backward.

0:00 | 31:27

 In this episode of The Paid Leave Podcast, host Nancy Barrow talks with the Connecticut Bureau of Aging, which is part of the Connecticut Department of Aging and Disability Services (ADS). In the podcast, she introduces three experts — Jennifer Switalski, Jodi Brazal, and Meghan Brady — who work with Connecticut's aging population. They discuss the challenges faced by older adults, including loneliness and mental health issues, as well as the importance of respite care for caregivers. They highlight the growing need for support as the population ages, with one in four Connecticut residents over 60. The conversation also touches on the financial and legal aspects of caregiving, the role of assistive technology, and the importance of early planning and communication with families.

They also discuss how Connecticut Paid Leave can benefit the aging working population with health issues by providing time off for medical appointments, as well as the importance of taking time off for caregivers who are helping a loved one with early-onset dementia. They add that the program can also help caregivers take time away from work while still receiving income replacement.


For more information about Aging in Connecticut please visit Department of Aging and Disability Services


For information or to apply for benefits please visit CT Paid Leave (ctpaidleave.org)

https://ctpaidleave.org/s/?language=en_US



https://www.facebook.com/CTPaidLeave



https://www.instagram.com/ctpaidleave/



https://twitter.com/CTPaidLeave



https://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=ct+paid+leave

Nancy Barrow:

Hello, Connecticut, and welcome to The Paid Leave Podcast. The title basically says it all. I'm Nancy Barrow, and I will be delving into this new state program and how it can help you and your family. This podcast will give you information you should know about Connecticut Paid Leave, and maybe just a little bit more. Connecticut Paid Leave brings peace of mind to your home, family, and workplace. Welcome to The Paid Leave Podcast. May is a busy month with Dementia Awareness Week being may 18 through the 24th. It's Mental Health Awareness Month. And May is Older Americans Month. It's a time to recognize older Americans' contributions, highlighting aging trends and reaffirming our commitment to serving older adults. The population in the United States is rapidly aging. There's an estimated 65 million people over the age of 65 in the nation, and it reflects the demographic aging trends. However, with that comes news that people aged 75 and older had the highest suicide rate among all age groups, largely driven by males. The reasons: social isolation, loneliness, and mental health issues. I have three wonderful women who will talk about these issues, and more, who work with Connecticut's aging population. Jennifer Switalski has been in the social work field for over a decade as a field representative and project coordinator for the Bureau of Aging, and assists caregivers or older adults, caregivers of those with disabilities, and older relative caregivers of children in their caregiving journey. Jennifer holds a master's in social work from UConn and is a licensed social worker. Jodi Brazal is a seasoned professional with over 25 years of experience in aging and disability as the program manager and the Connecticut statewide respite care program at the Connecticut Department of Aging and Disability. She specializes in supporting informal caregivers and Jodi holds a master's in social work and a graduate certificate in gerontology from UConn. Meghan Brady is the Dementia Services Coordinator for the Bureau of Aging, a newly created position in the state of Connecticut, which works to coordinate dementia services across state agencies and community partners, and she brings a lot of experience in public policy and healthcare management, community engagement, and working with older adults and people with Alzheimer's disease and related dementias. Jennifer, Jodi, Meghan, welcome to The Paid Leave Podcast. So happy to have all three women here to talk. I'm really excited to talk to you.

Jodi Brazal:

Thanks for having us.

Jennifer Switalski:

Thanks for having us, yeah.

Nancy Barrow:

Well, let's just start. Can you explain what the Connecticut Department of Aging and Disability Services does, and how the Bureau of Aging falls into it, and the role it plays in the lives of older adults in Connecticut.

Jodi Brazal:

Absolutely, so at the Department of Aging and Disability Services, our role is to ensure that older adults and folks with disabilities can maintain their independence as much as possible, they can live with dignity. Choice is another thing that we would love for them to be able to live with, and we don't take that choice away from them. So it's very person-centered what we do, and it's really important, especially the aging. Well, for us, it's the aging piece, because that's our bureau, so we're a little, you know.

Nancy Barrow:

Biased with that!

Jodi Brazal:

I guess you could say that maybe, and not that, not to say that older adults don't also have a disability.

Nancy Barrow:

That comes one with the other?

Jodi Brazal:

Some can, yeah, absolutely can, but I think that a lot of times we think of those as two separate issues. When in some of the population those can be a combined issue, yeah, making it that much more difficult to maintain independence in the home, and that's hopefully where we come in to try to support them as best we can. And we're looking at numbers of one in four Connecticut residents is now over the age of 60 right? Big number, big number. And that's only growing. Yes, you know, so.

Nancy Barrow:

I think it's like a whole national trend, like I was saying earlier.

Jodi Brazal:

Absolutely,

Meghan Brady:

It's a national trend, but we're the sixth oldest state in the US, so we definitely have a higher proportion than other states.

Nancy Barrow:

So your services are really important!

Jodi Brazal:

Absolutely!

Nancy Barrow:

I think it's only going to grow, obviously, right?

Jodi Brazal:

It is as the baby boomers are in that time of their life now, and a couple of us are Gen X behind them, you know, in our minds we're a lot behind them, not much behind them, so it's going to take a lot more to support those folks, right? And the numbers.

Nancy Barrow:

Really interesting. And so, for people who may not know what each of you do, and I did a little explanation, can you talk about what you do day to day in Connecticut? Like, what do you guys do?

Jennifer Switalski:

Obviously, we're in a larger Bureau of Aging and Disability Services, and as Jody highlighted, we're the Bureau of Aging. We focus on specifically helping caregivers navigate the system, from anything from public education events, information assistance, and referral support groups, supplemental services to help you through your caregiving journey, and a big focus is called respite, and that just means a break for a caregiver, irregardless of their caregiving situation.

Nancy Barrow:

If anyone has been a caregiver, you know how important respite is. Yeah. And do you work closely with groups like hospice?

Jennifer Switalski:

Yes, we work closely with groups that represent the Medicare, Medicaid population, a variety of different types of caregiving situations. Right, there's no one size fits all as far as our services. Just because you have a diagnosis or you have, you know, a certain family structure doesn't necessarily mean that the services we put in place are going to work for you. So we're constantly sort of adjusting the care for folks, and as Megan will touch upon, ADRD is a progressive, Alzheimer's and related dementia is a progressive disease. So needs will continue to grow over time. Same with a lot of the caregiving situations that we deal with, it's often that again we have to continue to adjust services over time. So Megan's going to talk about this too, but we're focusing on building a dementia-capable system, so ensuring that individuals and caregivers have the tools that they need as conditions progress, and she highlights that there's 130,000 family caregivers here in Connecticut supporting people with disabilities and dementia.

Nancy Barrow:

It's interesting, because I have a friend whose husband has early onset. It's so tragic. I always send her information. I sent her your information from your website if she needs services, and how to get help, and, and I think that you're, you know, that's what's really important, is you are there for people, the caregivers of people who are going through dementia, and the people who are going through dementia themselves, if they're still capable of working, you know that's that's one of the things.

Jodi Brazal:

But that's one of, I wanted to circle back to, that one of the things that we see as a barrier to all that we're presenting is folks don't recognize that they are caregivers.

Nancy Barrow:

Yeah, it's just a wife, right, or a husband.

Jodi Brazal:

Exactly, exactly, I married them, this is just part of what, or you know, it's my mom, she took care of me, and so you know I'm just running, running errands for her. I'm going shopping for her. But there's a disconnect between what they're actually doing and that term caregiver. Yeah, so if you are starting to feel a little burnt out, you need some support, and you're not thinking that you're a caregiver, how do you connect to that?

Nancy Barrow:

Yeah, it's really interesting. How do you help people connect to that, it's because that's the really difficult part. You're not separated enough from it, right? Like, you're in it. And what are some trends in aging that you might be seeing?

Jennifer Switalski:

26% of caregivers are between the ages of 64 and 66 here in Connecticut. So, we're seeing people that are actually aging themselves while also caring for someone who may need, you know, a variety of things. 61% so more than half of Connecticut caregivers have been caregiving for more than three years, so they've been in it for a while. And, as Meghan said, it's like they either don't know where to go. We have to reduce the stigma. I do want to highlight that Connecticut tries to take a no wrong door approach. Meaning that there's no wrong door to enter. If you ask a question to a senior center professional, you should be able to get to where you need to go, versus a, you know, physician when the caregiver attends the appointment, to the local pickleball league. You know what I mean, like I'm just trying to think, like, there should be no door that you enter that you don't end up again where you're supposed to go. We've really, as Meghan highlighted, Jodi highlighted, we've tried to simplify our materials. Don't worry about what state agency we are, you know, just don't worry about our contracts. Like, we'll figure everything for you out once you call this number. We have a big falls prevention initiative, fallsfreect.org, is going to be released next week by the time this is released.

Nancy Barrow:

Oh wow, that's excellent.

Jennifer Switalski:

Yep and it's a huge initiative to assist people with exercise, as Megan pointed out. It also has a specific program for people with Alzheimer's and related dementia, so there's no wrong way to attempt these programs, and attempt these activities. A lot of people have had to make home modifications to their homes here in Connecticut. They're going to stay aging in place, but they need the financial assistance. Or, where do I access this? A lot of towns have home modification grant programs that people don't necessarily know about, you can talk to your town hall, and according to an AARP survey, caregivers here are asking for certain categories of information. They're asking for how do I manage my own finances and my health, how do I fill out pay. Per work, I have no idea where to start, and I don't know a lot of these answers to these questions, particularly for unconventional caregiving relationships. Right, I'm caring for the neighbor, I don't know their social security numbers.

Nancy Barrow:

Exactly, right, but they're like family, right? Yeah, so our caregiver is related by affinity, you don't have to be blood related, right, in Connecticut Paid Leave, so that's exactly the description that we would want to hear, like it's a neighbor who's a, who's like basic family, right? Right, and you want to do those, you want to do those things. What about, like, the sandwich generation? You know, you have someone who has young children, and you have, and they're caring for their elderly parents, that is a tough one, and I know that you were talking about caregiving, but like, how do you help the caregivers who are stretched so thin?

Jennifer Switalski:

So I was the sandwich generation, so it's a great question to ask us. I have two young kids, seven and almost four, and I cared for my grandfather for the past four years of his life, he lived until 96 We went through hospice with him in my home, while also raising my kids and working. I had an aide come in, I had to apply for long-term care. He had some sort of coverage through the VA that I applied for, and that paid for someone to come in to give me respite, so I would leave my house and have a couple of hours and come back. That was the biggest thing that assisted me was being because what you, a lot of people don't realize is, for example, when someone's on hospice, they need to have someone with them 24 hours a day.

Nancy Barrow:

Absolutely right.

Jennifer Switalski:

And you're like, but I just want to go get a coffee, right? I just want to do something, and being in and out all day long, caring for someone medically who's completely dependent on you, and then also having young children trying to navigate that situation, while also grieving what you're seeing. I think that's something we try to point out to caregivers. This is going to be a grieving process. This is not the way you remember this person, particularly with progressive illnesses. The neighbor, right? Maybe you've lived next door to them for 20 years, you're not used to seeing them need assistance all the time, and then you're in that personal relationship with them when you were never prepared to be that. So, I think it's really important to give the sandwich generation a break, just like any other caregiver, and honor that they're navigating their own feelings while they're caring for the care recipient. Include them in conversations. I think that something every caregiver should hear is the person you're caring for still has a voice, so constantly talk to them. Do you want this person coming over and you know, shaving you or taking you to the bathroom? If not, then, like, we'll find a way around that. They still have dignity, they had a life before this illness or something occurred to them. So I think it's a really special thing if our generation, a millennial, is able to care for our parents, our grandparents, aunts, uncles, neighbors, because in a lot of ways you're giving back to the cycle that's inevitably going to happen to all of us.

Nancy Barrow:

So let me ask you one thing, because I do think respite is really important, but also when you're stretched that thin, and you're doing for everybody else. What about your mental health as a caregiver?

Jennifer Switalski:

As far as taking time off, I did you know you can apply for FMLA and Connecticut Paid Leave if it's applicable, but what people don't realize too with FMLA is you can take it intermittently, you can do a reduced schedule.

Nancy Barrow:

Yeah.

Jennifer Switalski:

Just so that you can like figure out what you need. I would say support within your life is a really big thing. So, seeking out people, you know, my partner was extremely supportive. We've known each other for a long time, and so you're both going to sort of get thrown into these situations that you were not prepared for exactly, so and then someone would have you know, someone needs to come take your kids, particularly for the sandwich generation. It's okay to say, I need a break.

Nancy Barrow:

Let's talk about older relative caregivers, because I do think that's an important aspect, like caregivers of grandchildren. Sometimes things happen.

Jennifer Switalski:

So under the National Family Caregiver Support Program, which is one of the programs we oversee. We include respite up to $7,500 worth of respite care, summer camp support, after-school activity support, so paying for those things. Those types of activities add up, as any parent can probably relate to. We have caregiver support groups specifically for grandparents raising grandchildren, as well as you could be raising relative or non-relative kin, that's a big one.

Nancy Barrow:

Right.

Jennifer Switalski:

Training caregiver training, it's an evidence-based model to assist you in your caregiving journey, that includes some of those stress reduction activities and caregiver counseling, so that's that element. Around some of the needs that I pointed out here in Connecticut, what people are actually asking for would be addressed within caregiver counseling with a licensed professional, and that's included in your stipend to use. Yeah, and honestly, the numbers for children here in the US are baffling. It's like almost 3 million children are being raised by grandparents or relative kin here in the US. Oftentimes, they're outside of the child welfare system, so you're not getting the same benefits as a caregiver as you would if you were in that system. And one in four adults here are caring for individuals with disabilities, and they're also older themselves. It could be a relative, a non-relative, and they've been doing this for a while, right. A lot of families are operating not knowing what's out there, because it's just the duty. So, if you don't take in your kin, there is a larger system that will manage that, and oftentimes families are like, no, we want, we want to be able to do that.

Nancy Barrow:

Yeah, we want control of that.

Jennifer Switalski:

Yeah, which is, you know, you understand. But then there's this also supporting a big piece is supporting the grandparents, relative kin, people caring for someone with a disability, the legal system. That's a big thing that we notice. Right, there are laws and legislation around all of it, and so there used to be, and we're hoping it continues, navigators within the juvenile courts and probate courts to assist people on what does, you know, transfer of guardianship even mean. How do I adopt someone? Do I need a lawyer? Do I need a lawyer? Like, what? How do I advocate for this? Are we supposed to be doing visits with the parents? How do we deal with that? So, there's a lot to be said about that, and as Jody pointed out, and Megan pointed out, we really want to balance the self-determination of folks. What does the child want? What does the person with a disability want? What does the caregiver want? Maybe you're just thrown into the situation. What's your long-term plan? You just retired, right? It's like you're still working, yeah, right. So that's a big piece, is keeping the voice of both the care recipient and the caregiver.

Nancy Barrow:

Should you be notifying your family, like this is what I want, and this is I want to stay at home as long as I can. You know, do you have these conversations with family? Like, is that super important?

Jodi Brazal:

Absolutely. It's funny, my son's an economist, and he pushes his two younger sisters to start putting money in their, like, IRAs right now, my daughter's 18, but everybody seems to plan to retire younger and younger, but along with that comes aging, and comes all of these other issues surrounding aging.

Nancy Barrow:

Yeah, financial, I didn't even think about that aspect, that's a huge one.

Jodi Brazal:

It is, and even for caregivers, yeah, you know, that's that's about $8,000 out of pocket for a caregiver as they're caring for somebody of their own money, but, but yes, absolutely, my, my own father, I, he had a stroke out of the blue, never told any of us, he was 72 which is relatively young. We had no idea, we had no idea what it, what he wanted, what you know, we were assuming, and you always want to, well, most of the time, want to do right by the person who's been impacted, their health has been impacted, so you kind of feel your way through. But how much simpler would it be if you had that conversation earlier on, when your children are adults, and can have that kind of a conversation to say, "Hey, this is these, these are my thoughts, this is my plan, let's get some paperwork started. So, in the event, I mean, I could walk out and be hit by a car today, and I don't even have a will. I mean, these are things that we, we tend to push off and push off, because you know we're not there yet, but life can just change on a dime.

Nancy Barrow:

It sure can.

Jodi Brazal:

And so to not be prepared, you're you're putting that much more of a burden on your children, or on whomever is going to care for you, and then that way you can take more control of your own life and what's happening to you down the road by kind of putting all your ducks in a row early on, but you have to have that conversation. If you don't communicate, even if I have a will, I mean, just my, do my children know where it's at?

Nancy Barrow:

Yeah, and does it go into probate? Exactly, my dad was really prepared.

Jodi Brazal:

Oh, you're lucky.

Nancy Barrow:

He was ultra prepared, he well, he worked in the insurance industry, so he certainly knew what was going on, so he was really smart and very much prepared. But I have friends who, whose parents have not prepared, and so it's really interesting to see how having conversations can be really meaningful, and, and it can relieve a lot of guilt for the kids if they know what is happening. You know what you would like to do, you know. And I think those are hard conversations.

Jodi Brazal:

They are hard, and not everybody is ready to talk about that, because of everything that would be involved, you know. Hey, Mom, I don't.. I don't want to think about you dying. Let's just not even talk about that. But then, instead of doing an emotional conversation, hey, here's some paperwork, let's go through this, and more factual in nature, take some of that emotion out of it, if possible, but you're right. To be prepared is probably one of the biggest gifts you can give to your child.

Nancy Barrow:

Because the child starts thinking earlier about themselves and gets prepared as well. So, I think it's sort of a generational thing. If you can do that, you can get your own plans and wishes for your own care.

Meghan Brady:

I think sometimes it's just, you know, there's easy ways to have that conversation. Open the door. I mean, I worked in home care for years, and sometimes I would have very proactive, you know, folks come in my office saying, I know I'm going to need a knee replacement surgery. Can I get your card? Because I live alone, I'm going to need some groceries delivered, I'm going to need someone to straighten up and maybe do some meal prep for me, so even you know people who have a relative that they're anticipating something like that, that's a good way just to open the door, have a conversation about care needs, and then maybe planning for the future, but I mean, that could be funny, I mean, I could trip over my dog this afternoon and end up, you know, in the ER and not being able to move around for a while, so I mean it's that's kind of a, you know, kind of an easy way to maybe open that door.

Nancy Barrow:

What are the biggest needs you're seeing right now among Connecticut's aging population?

Jodi Brazal:

I think we could all add to that. One thing I see I come from a housing background and affordable housing is huge. You know, you're going from whatever your income was before you were retired to partial income and not making the kind of money that you would need to afford even rent in the state. I was seeing, like, rent is more than a mortgage now.

Nancy Barrow:

It is.

Jodi Brazal:

Who is supposed to be able to afford that as a single older adult retired.

Jennifer Switalski:

Like, what number do you call to be like, I need help paying my heating bill? What 2-1-1? But you have to know about 2-1-1 first too. Someone should have told you, you know, 2-1-1 is some somewhere you can go, but in a lot of, we've tried to make things seamless as far as applications online. But that's under the assumption that you can access the internet, and we have a huge initiative for broadband equity internet across all of Connecticut, specifically for rural parts of the state. They're trying to ensure that every town has access to internet. It's a long-term initiative, but we're, we're seeing hopefully some improvement with that.

Jodi Brazal:

And transportation is a huge, huge issue. Is it really? Oh, yeah, one of our biggest issues. And I don't know, I think I worked for 2-1-1, it was a long time ago, and even then people were constantly calling about they didn't have transportation to get somewhere, and then if you have home care coming in and those folks don't have transportation to get to you, like if you're in the city they can get to you.

Nancy Barrow:

Yeah, sure.

Jodi Brazal:

They can use public transit, yeah, but if you're over in the middle of, I don't know, had them say, and and there's no bus system, they can't get to you, and you, as an older adult who doesn't drive anymore, can't get to them or get to any kind of other supports, that's quite an issue for the state. Well, any state really has, right?

Meghan Brady:

Well, and that a couple things there that we're kind of concentrating on. I mean, obviously, you know, training and supports for family caregivers are so important, because as we had seen a stat recently, and in 2030 we're going to be coming to a point in our country, and I think Japan's already have that, where we're going to have more people over the 60, over 65 than under, so we're going to have a lot of workforce issues, right, so, so training and supporting family caregiving is really important, because we're not going to have, you know, all those folks in home care being able to go out to these houses, so making sure that's in place, and this year's theme was assisted technology, and, and just the things that are being implemented to keep people in their homes is amazing. I mean, there are simple things like med, there's high tech and low tech, there's medication reminder boxes that people use, and I know I, I used to get calls just for that. Can you just pop in to make sure they're taking their meds? Well, there's different ways to do that. Now, with assistive technology, and, and there's low tech, you know, as far as, especially, you know, kitchen safety, I mean, there's burners that turn off, there's safety knives that people could use, so they continue to do their favorite things in meal prep, and different things like that. I was just in Atlanta recently, visiting my children, and I got to ride in a Waymo, you know, one of the, you know, driverless vehicles. I mean, I've got a relative that just, you know, realized he can no longer drive. Yeah, can you imagine when that, you know, comes into play? So we have a lot of things that, that we've got programs in the state that the Connecticut Tech Act, you know, has has funding where you know folks come out and they do assessments in the home and give you different ideas and how to engage Alexa, you know, to help out with different things. So those are different ways that we're really trying to help people age in place.

Jennifer Switalski:

Rght now in our community, more than half of people over the age of 60 live alone, so that's a big piece, too. That loneliness piece, right?

Nancy Barrow:

That's solo aging.

Jennifer Switalski:

Yeah, yeah. So we're gonna see, as Meghan pointed out, a significant increase of adults aging out of the workforce and needing to replace those jobs, because those very services support older adults, so it's like this: the older adult needs the support, but there's no one in their position to support, you know, so it's going to be a lot of that, and I think it was by, yeah, by 2020 30 is going to be a really big year as far as older adults and aging across the nation, yeah, so we'll have to see where things end up, and I think we're moving in the right direction. I think we definitely, you know, keep your eye out in the news around social security, Medicare, Medicaid - those are all benefits that support older adults and those with disabilities.

Nancy Barrow:

It's a growing problem. Yes, for sure. Yep. How valuable is Connecticut Paid Leave to the people that you work closely with?

Meghan Brady:

I think it's talking about both on the caregiver side, right, and the different options a caregiver can do through Connecticut Paid Leave, and also for people living with dementia, someone who's early diagnosed and is still able to do their teaching position for, you know, a few years or however long they're able to do that, and you know, like I said, that there are there are new treatments, and some of them are, you have to go to infusion centers, so taking time off to be able to do that, taking time off to do some financial planning and estate planning, you know, anticipating the future. I think that's all you know and important stuff for both those sides of the coin.

Jennifer Switalski:

And Megan's done a lot of research around earlier onsets of dementia, so realizing you might need Connecticut paid leave sooner than you, you think, right? So we're seeing a lot of younger folks diagnosed or starting to question, as she said, like something's a little off. But you're also not anywhere near retirement, and maybe you are the sandwich generation. Maybe you're caring for your own young kids while working, maybe you're caring for your parent, but then you start to realize, oh wait, something's off with me.

Nancy Barrow:

Yeah.

Jodi Brazal:

With the younger onset, though we are seeing it's a little different because they're not the person is not caring for their parents, they're caring for their spouse. Right, which I don't know the numbers, but I'm aware of those numbers growing where we have folks being diagnosed in their 40s, and with children still in grade school, you know, it's horrifying to see that, but then you have the spouse calls and says, I don't know how to do all this, I can't leave my job, I can't quit working, we need an income of some sort.

Nancy Barrow:

What would you three like people to take away from this podcast?

Meghan Brady:

For Alzheimer's and dementia, I think you know there's a lot of places to learn more about that, and I would certainly point them to our new resource guide, which they could find online at, ct.gov/ctcaregiverguide, and that will bring you through kind of what to expect, or even if you're Wondering and Worried, was one of our first chapters, just to bring you through there, and I would say, you know, it's very positive some of the advances we've made in science and treatment and and prevention or risk reduction, so you know our brain health recipe, we talk about four things: physical exercise, health monitoring, looking at your, your weight, your blood pressure, your, you know, sugar levels, cognitive exercise. Engagement and social activities fall under that, and nutrition.

Jennifer Switalski:

Just knowing you're not alone in this journey, there are resources out there. You don't need to have it all figured out the first day you make a phone call. You're going to learn about yourself and the person you're caring for, and it will continue to evolve. And again, you're not alone in it.

Jodi Brazal:

And I think, as a caregiver, it's important to know that you need support as well, that it's okay to take a break, it's okay to have different feelings, whether they be pride or frustration, or whatever that looks like for you, it's okay, and it's okay to ask for help.

Nancy Barrow:

I want to thank my guests, Jennifer Switalski, Jodi Brazal, and Meghan Brady from the Bureau of Aging for joining me today and giving out such great information. I really want to thank all of you for coming in, and it's important information, and I appreciate all of you for coming in.

Jennifer Switalski:

Thank you.

Jodi Brazal:

You're a sweetheart. Thank you so much.

Nancy Barrow:

It was so nice having you. For more information or to apply for benefits, please go to ctpaidleave.org. This has been another edition of the Paid Leave Podcast. Please like and subscribe, so you'll be notified about new podcasts that become available. Connecticut Paid Leave is a public act with a personal purpose. I'm Nancy Barrow, and thanks for listening.

Head Shot

Nancy Barrow

Host