In September of 2020, a reported 865K women left the workforce in the US. Many of these women are caregivers and moms who felt they had no choice but to step away from work to keep their children's education on track and keep their family intact. In this episode, I share some stats, helpful resources I've found for you to gain support, learn skills, and gain hope for starting over with the flexibility to care for yourself and your family.

The pressure on parents is off the charts right now, but the burden on women is far more significant as we fill the role of primary caregiver and often earn less than our male partners. America was not, is not, prepared to support working parents. We cannot send our children to school for a full day, and many child care centers have reduced service or shut down completely. And given the pandemic's precautions, it's that much more difficult and expensive to hire a qualified, healthy caregiver, babysitter, or nanny to support us at home.

Resources for women and moms searching for support ways to find flexible work

Four Times More Women Than Men Dropped Out of the Labor Force in September

The Mom Project - support for finding family-friendly jobs

https://themomproject.com

The Mom Project's white paper on what women want and need at work

The Mom Project's UNITY Hour - webinar to support moms with topics from professionals who've navigated career changes and growth as mothers.

The Mom Project's RISE - no-cost scholarship for women of color to gain skills and job placement in as little as 3 months

The Mom Project's Resume Rev - build your new resume online with their helpful tool (FREE)

The UNITY Program - FREE coaching - for those impacted by COVID job loss, furloughs, etc.

WerkLabs The Future of Work - reports and details on what employees want from work and their employers

https://werklabs.com/

SKILLS AND ONLINE COURSES

General Assembly FREE Fridays - A collection of FREE 2-hour webinars to uplevel your digital and marketing skills and spark up a new career path

https://generalassemb.ly/

SAS for Women - divorce support, coaching, free articles, classes for greater perspective, sisterhood, and empowerment

https://sasforwomen.com/

ADDA - Attention Deficit Disorder Association - structure is gone, distractions are high. Whether you have kids with ADD, have it yourself, or feel distracted and unable to cope, this is a fantastic resource for creating some perspective and learning strategies that foster sanity and productivity. ADDA is giving access to their courses for free at this time. However, memberships are $50/year and it's been 1000% worth it for me. https://add.org/

Parenting Complex Kids in Complex times - (a course) with Elaine Taylor-Klaus and Diane Dempster

There are some tried and true techniques and strategies that will help you support yourself and your family, whether you're in quarantine, navigating hybrid work and school, or figuring out how to start living "normally "in uncertain times. Learn some tricks to empower your kids (and even yourself) to make increasingly more confident decisions — not just in the weeks and months ahead, but for the long term.

PEP Parenting - support for families through education and enrichment. PEP offers support in the way of low priced courses and live webinars ($25) on specific parenting topics, many related to COVID, .

http://pepparent.org/

PEP's COVID related parenting courses

https://pepparentonline.org/courses/category/Coronavirus

Ghost.org - for simple websites that don't involve the headache of WordPress and plug-ins. Ghost sites load FAST, look beautiful, and are easy to modify. Working with Ghost is similar to writing for Medium.com. I'll have a tutorial soon showing you how to build your website or blog quickly. Note: I loved it so much I became an affiliate, so I will earn a few dollars if you decide to use it after the FREE trial period.

MINDSET AND SHIFTING YOUR PERSPECTIVE WHILE YOU SLEEP

If you're too exhausted and don't have time during the day to work on building hope, listening to 8-hour long affirmations while you sleep can work wonders. Kind of feels like magic! And I LOVE this woman's voice. :-)

• Get Into The Receiving Mode REPROGRAM WHILE YOU SLEEP. I Am Positive Affirmations Blessed

• Artists & Entrepreneurs Reprogram Your Mind & Ehhance INSPIRATION & INTUITION While You Sleep. FLOW

Brief meditation to Remove ALL GUILT (4:52)