Talking Teen Services: Seeing Our Unseen Caregiving Youth
In 2023, the Healthy Kids Colorado survey asked middle and high schoolers in Colorado whether or not they “provide care for someone in their family or household who is chronically ill, elderly, or disabled with activities they would have difficulty doing on their own one or more days a week.” An estimated 12.4% of high schoolers and 20.5% of middle schoolers responding said yes.
Caregiving youth who provide care for adults and/or younger children in their families, households, and communities often go unseen by professionals working in settings like public and school libraries. We ask “How do I get teens into the library?” instead of asking what responsibilities teens have at home that prevent them from visiting the library. During this session, our panel of experts and caregivers will help us learn more about how to better see these unseen young people.
Library folks, let’s also gather again on January 20, 2026 to utilize what we learn from our panelists and begin discussing how we better serve this underserved population through our public and school libraries.
Register here.
Panelists:
Nadine Roberts Cornish, Founder, Colorado Alliance for Caregiving Youth : nadine@cacycares.org
Nadine Roberts Cornish is a Certified Senior Advisor, Gerontologist, Author, National Speaker, and Chief Care Strategist with over eighteen years of experience in care management and consultation. As the founder of The Caregiver’s Guardian (TCG), she has dedicated her life to supporting and empowering caregivers nationwide through education, advocacy, and personal experience.
Nadine’s commitment to caregiver advocacy and radical self-care is evident in her work with individual caregivers, organizations, businesses, and faith-based communities. She emphasizes the importance of self-care and provides practical tools and strategies to help caregivers thrive. She has conducted educational symposiums and lunch-and-learn series for faith-based communities of all walks across the country, emphasizing the importance of self-care and providing practical tools and strategies to help caregivers thrive.
Author of the acclaimed books “Tears In My Gumbo: The Caregiver’s Recipe for Resilience” and “Prayers In My Gumbo: The Caregiver’s Recipe for Peace,” Nadine’s writings have been integrated into university curriculums across the country. She is currently working on “Recipes in My Gumbo,” a cookbook, and “Joy In My Gumbo,” the next installment in her series.
Nadine’s unwavering dedication to caregivers extends to her recent founding of the non-profit organization, (CACY) Colorado Alliance for Caregiving Youth focusing on supporting caregiving youth and their families. Her expertise and passion make her a leading voice in the field of caregiving and advocacy.
Nadine conducts free bi-weekly caregiver support group sessions via Zoom and has recently launched her podcast, “Caregiving It’s A Hot Mess”.
Sarah Nolan, Volunteer & Respite Programs Manager, The Resource Exchange: snolan@tre.org
Sarah has been with The Resource Exchange since 2015 and continues to be in awe of the expansion of the program. With the addition of Gathering Time and Our Time, she is thrilled to serve more young adults through respite. She is also a certified MANDT trainer and loves sharing her skills with her fellow employees. She is a native of Colorado Springs and her husband, Rocky, have been married for over 15 years. Sarah is a special needs mom herself and has a teenage son and daughter. She enjoys cooking, crocheting baby blankets for her friends and family and cheering on the Denver Broncos.
Lisle Reed, Whole Child Initiatives Coordinator – Student Engagement Initiatives, Adams 12 Five Star Schools: Lisle.M.Reed@adams12.org
Lisle has been the Whole Child Initiatives Coordinator for Adams 12 Five Star Schools since 2017. Lisle started her public service in the U.S. Navy as a Chinese Cryptolinguist and Training Coordinator. After leaving the service, she quickly discovered a passion for working with highly impacted youth and spent eight years in Mapleton Public Schools as a Social Studies teacher and a K-8 Assistant Principal. Lisle currently oversees McKinney-Vento Homeless Education, Child Welfare Education, Migrant Education, Evacuee and Refugee Education, and District Health & Wellness Initiatives. She holds an M.Ed. in Educational Leadership from Colorado State University and is a certified trainer in Restorative Practices, Positive Youth Development, and Sources of Strength.
Dr. Elizabeth Olson, Interim Director, Institute for the Arts and Humanities; Professor, Department of Geography and Environment, College of Arts and Sciences, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill: eaolson@email.unc.edu
Dr. Olson is the Interim Director of the Institute for the Arts and Humanities and a Professor of Geography and the Environment in the College of Arts and Sciences at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. She’s also a Professor of Global Studies with a focus on methods and theory. Dr. Olson has held multiple leadership positions at UNC–Chapel Hill, most recently as department Chairperson, and at her previous position in the School of GeoSciences at the University of Edinburgh. She is co-founder and co-director of the Caregiving Youth Research Collaborative, a national consortium of researchers and scholars in the U.S., and currently serve as co-chair of the AAG Climate Action Task Force.
Dr. Olson researches themes related to care, ethics, and young people, sometimes separately, sometimes in relation to each other. Her scholarship is produced in collaboration and through transformative partnerships with practitioners, artists, and other scholars, often co-developing methodological innovations to engage diverse communities.