Faculty member at White House summit
CSU Monterey Bay faculty member Lisa Stewart is taking her research on work-family issues to a national stage.
Dr. Stewart, who teaches in the master of social work program, will take part in the White House Summit on Working Families in Washington, D.C., on June 23. The goal of the summit is to bring business leaders and policy makers, work-family advocates and scholars together to build a national strategy to support working families. “I was invited because my research focuses on the challenges employees with disability-related caregiving face when they combine that with paid employment,” Dr. Stewart said via email, as she was en route to a professional conference in New York.
Those challenges include maintaining employment, attaining a career trajectory and income security, she said. Dr. Stewart examines how caregiving and paid work intersect in different ways for people taking care of the disabled and those with typical caregiving experiences, such as caring for young children. Her work put her on the radar of the Institute for Women’s Policy Research; that group invited her to its Paid Family Leave Research Strategy Summit in 2012. That led to an invitation to the summit. Her work takes on added significance because of demographic shifts currently under way. “There has been a profound increase in the likelihood that one will be both working and providing disability-related caregiving for a portion of one’s working life,” she said. President Barack Obama, First Lady Michelle Obama, Vice President Joe Biden and Dr. Jill Biden will be in attendance. Learn more about the summit here.