Caregiving is deeply human—and often invisible. Many professionals are quietly balancing responsibility for others while managing the emotional, mental, and professional impact it can have on their lives. During Mental Health Awareness Month, this conversation creates space to explore the realities of caregiving and what sustainable leadership looks like when care is part of life.
This thoughtful session will explore:
- The impact of caregiving on mental health, identity, and career growth
- Common challenges like burnout, guilt, stress, and isolation
- The realities facing the sandwich generation and working caregivers
- Ways leaders and organizations can better support caregivers through benefits and flexibility
- Practical strategies for setting boundaries, protecting energy, and leading with empathy
Attend this session to better understand caregiving, support mental health with compassion, and build resilience—for your people and yourself.
Meet the Presenters
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Barbara Escalante Hess
Barbara Escalante Hess is an accomplished senior human resources executive with an impressive history of helping private equity-backed organizations build critical infrastructure, scale, and achieve successful exits. Her success in private equity environments is rooted in her ability to quickly diagnose situations, generate practical solutions, make thoughtful decisions, and drive consensus across executive teams/boards of directors.
Barb is currently Chief Human Resources Officer for CCS Medical and since 2021, has been an integral part in standing up the CCS Health business, growing company revenue and headcount 20-30% YOY while doubling the patient base, and boosting talent retention by 40% in a highly competitive labor market. Prior to this, she served as Chief Human Resources Officer for private equity-backed Medical Specialties Distributors (MSD) where her leadership and talent/succession management expertise contributed to the company’s rapid growth ($350M to $800M in 2 years) and ultimate sale to McKesson.
Earlier in Barb’s career, she was Director of Organizational Development for Cardinal Health (Fortune 20), where she implemented enterprise-wide solutions that shaped global culture and sustained progress via gaining C-Suite support/skillful change management. Barb started her career with Nationwide Insurance as an HR Business Partner supporting 4.5K employees across the Financial Services and IT groups.
Barb earned a Bachelor of Arts degree in Management/Labor Relations from Cleveland State University and a Master’s degree in Industrial/Organizational Psychology from Capella University.
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Shannon McDougal
Shannon McDougal is Vice President of Human Assets at OneGoal, where she leads the talent work behind the movement to transform postsecondary advising, so that every student can have an equitable opportunity to achieve their greatest postsecondary aspirations. During her tenure, Shannon has helped scale the organization from 40 to over 200 employees, successfully establishing a values-driven culture focused on strong staff engagement and retention through significant periods of growth and change.
Shannon holds a bachelor’s degree in business administration from University of North Carolina- Chapel Hill and began her career as a high school English teacher through the Teach for America program. Her diverse professional background—spanning education, healthcare consulting, and human resources—fuels her passion for building high-performing, purpose-driven teams. Shannon believes in the power of collective impact and finding the unique strengths in every individual. She is a certified Crucial Conversations facilitator and outside of her professional work, she is the proud mother of two young children, striving to lead with the curiosity and kindness they teach her every day.
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Stacia Scott
Stacia Scott is the owner of Postpartum Care USA. She is a mother to 3 boys, 5 years old and younger, and is married to her high school sweetheart, Eric. A fun fact about her is that she played Di college basketball on a full ride scholarship and have multiple records where she attended high school. She loves hard work and loves working with people that give everything they have for their passion. Her calling is helping others succeed and solving problems from being a perpetual learner and understanding root cause issues.
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Kathleen Schulz
Kathleen Schulz is the Global Innovation Leader for Organizational Wellbeing within Gallagher’s Benefits and HR Consulting division. She works with Gallagher teams and clients to design holistic strategies to address the total employee value proposition – including all the dimensions of wellbeing, employee engagement, productivity and resiliency.
Kathleen has more than 20 years of experience in designing and implementing wellbeing, fitness, occupational health, EAP, benefits, work/life and organizational development initiatives. Prior to joining Gallagher, Kathleen spent nineteen year’s leading award winning occupational health and wellness programs at Campbell Soup Company and four years leading the health and wellness programs for NYNEX corporation in New York. Her experience lies in designing integrated approaches to organizational wellbeing by connecting culture, employee behavior, risk, and outcomes.
SHRM certification has approved this webinar for 1.25 PDC toward SHRM-CP or SHRM-SCP recertification. A program code will be provided at the end of the webinar.