Today, nearly 61% of the 63.7 million family caregivers in the U.S. are women,*serving as the primary coordinator, advocate, decision-maker and emotional anchor for others.
As women take on caregiving for aging parents, spouses, children and other family members, we may simultaneously be managing careers, households, relationships and our own well-being. At the same time, caregiving can bring complex emotions and difficult choices, affecting family dynamics and placing demands on our time, finances and personal identity.
Join us for our conversation with Melissa Douaire, M.Ed., M.Div., GC-C, a trusted voice in caregiving.
This session will explore steps to help you:
- Maintain your identity while caring for others
- Establish healthy boundaries without guilt
- Communicate effectively across generations
- Make intentional decisions to reduce resentment, regret, guilt and second-guessing
- Preserve relationships while protecting yourself
Whether you’re caring for someone now, expect to care for someone in the future or are supporting a caregiver in your life, this session will provide practical tools and perspective to help you care for others without compromising your own well-being or losing yourself in the process.
DETAILS:
Date: Wednesday, April 7
Time: 11:00 a.m.-12:00 p.m. CT
*Source: 2025 edition of Caregiving in the U.S., conducted jointly by the National Alliance for Caregiving (NAC) and AARP.
About Our Speaker
Melissa M. Douaire, M.Ed., M.Div., GC-C, founded Whole Person Conversations after two decades inside wealth management, including helping to found and build an independent wealth management firm. A certified grief counselor and an ordained UCC minister, Melissa trains professionals, advisors and leaders to hear the conversations that determine whether clients stay or leave.
Her personal-client work has included high-profile individuals navigating divorce, business sales, generational transfer, memory care and the death of a spouse, always with their privacy protected.
Her work sits at the intersection of grief counseling, ministerial care and wealth management practice. Advisors are trusted with the most intimate conversations in their clients’ lives, such as widowhood, divorce, generational transfer, the sale of a business or the death of a spouse. These are the moments when wealth is kept or lost. They’re also the moments when most advisors have never been trained for the conversation in front of them. Melissa built Whole Person Conversations to close that gap.
Her work is grounded in HELD™, a proprietary four-stage practice of listening and three supporting frameworks she developed for clients and advisors navigating major transitions.
She is the author of “The Care You Give: Supporting Seniors Through Change” (2026) and “Listening for Emotions: Supporting Families through Aging Transitions” in the Certified Senior Advisor Journal (2026). She has been featured in “Beyond the Loss: Why Naming What We Grieve Changes How We Lead,” published by DNATE and written by Stuart Paap, based on his podcast interview with Melissa.
Melissa holds a Master of Education degree from the University of Virginia, a Master of Divinity degree from Chicago Theological Seminary and a Bachelor of Arts degree from DePauw University. She lives in Boulder, Colorado.
Please let us know if you would like to have a conversation with us. Email the Women’s Forum with any questions at womensforum@creativeplanning.com!
