In this talk, Sheila Warnock recounts how the caregiving support network Share the Care was founded in New York City. The catalyst was her friend Susan Farrow, a divorced working mother of two who was diagnosed with a rare terminal cancer and later faced metastatic disease. After years of keeping her illness hidden, Susan’s therapist urged her friends to convene and devise a way to help. Within 24 hours, twelve people—work colleagues, neighbors, clients, and other mothers—gathered, each bringing a mix of fear, skepticism, and compassion. The group listened to Susan’s needs, shared emotional moments, and devised a “rotating captain system.” The twelve participants formed six two‑person teams; each week a pair acted as captains, contacting Susan, coordinating volunteers, assigning tasks, and creating a schedule so Susan never had to ask for assistance. This proactive, structured approach reduced Susan’s caregiver burden and became the core model for Share the Care.
Chapters
Share the Care actually started right here in New York City, believe it or not. You would think it would be the last place on earth, but it was where it all began. When a friend of mine named Susan Farrow, a divorced working mom with two young teenagers, was diagnosed with a rare terminal cancer and given a prognosis of 8 years. She went through her first bout of surgery and radiation Everybody knew about it, and then she went back to work. However, over the next 4 years, while people knew she had had this bout with cancer, they didn't know it came back. It had metastasized to her skeleton, and that she went through 3 more surgeries and radiation treatments. I think she kept it a secret because she didn't want to lose her job. She didn't want to frighten her children. Or maybe she just didn't want to believe it. But then, after all this time, she reached a crisis. And actually it was her therapist who suggested she get her friends together so we could all figure out how to help her. It was an emotional but incredibly productive meeting because on less than 24 hours' notice, 12 of us showed up. To see what we could do. But we all arrived with different states of emotion. There were some who were frightened to death, others who were nervous, skeptical. We just— it was amazing. And we didn't know each other. That was the other interesting thing. I knew two other women in the room, but the rest were strangers because they came from other parts of Sweden. Susan's life. There were work friends, neighbors, people from her summer house, clients, and even other moms. So we all heard that night exactly what was going on with Susan, which was, you know, shocking to some of the women there. But we got to work. Susan cried, we cried, and then we started in. And that night we actually came up with the key system for Share the Care. It's called our rotating captain system. There were 12 of us. So we decided we would work in teams. So that meant we would do 2 people on a team and we would call those people captains of the week. And the captains of the week would call Susan to find out what she needed so we could call everybody else, get the jobs and provide Susan with a schedule of who is coming when to do what for how long so she could relax. By working this way, we also took away one of the greatest burdens Susan had. She never had to ask for help. We went to her.
