Club Sandwich

Melissa Reader provides an update on Vera's FACES campaign.

FACES (Families for Aged Care Equity and Support) is a family-led campaign asking for one honest count of the number of people waiting for their aged care funding and the people who die while they're waiting. Add your name at vera.guide/faces.

Ageing parents? You've got them. We've got you.

Put The Kettle On — Vera's free conversation guide: the five qu...

She found out she was a carer from a line buried in her dad's hospital discharge papers, not from anyone asking her. This week's guest lived the exact crisis she'd spent her career trying to fix.

Content note: this episode discusses the deaths of both of the guest's parents within six months of each other, terminal illness, carer burnout, grief, and systemic failures in aged care support. For support: Carer Gateway 1800 422 737. Gr...

A will is only useful when you're dead, but the rest of the paperwork is critical long before that. This week's guest lives and breathes it for a living.

Marie Brownell, Director of Estate Planning and Administration at NSW Trustee and Guardian, joins Sarah Macdonald to explain what a power of attorney, an enduring power of attorney, an enduring guardianship and a will each actually do, who needs one, and why doing them together in...

Melissa Reader on the launch of Vera's new FACES campaign.

FACES (Families for Aged Care Equity and Support) is a family-led campaign asking for one honest count of the number of people waiting for their aged care funding and the people who die while they're waiting. Add your name at vera.guide/faces.

Ageing parents? You've got them. We've got you.

Put The Kettle On — Vera's free conversation guide: the five que...

Your kid finished school years ago. They're 22, or 27, or 33. So why are you still doing their washing? Clinical psychologist Jo Lamble is in the chair for the layer of the sandwich generation nobody names.

Content note: this is a lighter, funnier episode than most, although the last few minutes touch briefly on ageing parents and visiting a grandparent in aged care. For support: Relationships Australia 1300 364 277 (relationships....

What do you do when your kids are still little and your parents are already old? The queen of common sense, Maggie Dent, is in the chair for the double squeeze.

Content note: this episode includes honest conversations about death and dying, children's grief, and caring for a parent with dementia. Be gentle with yourself while you listen. For support: National Dementia Helpline 1800 100 500 (24/7). Kids Helpline 1800 55 1800 (kidshe...

What happens when your marriage ends in the exact season your parent needs you most? Katie Noonan knows, and this week, she tells us how you start again in the middle of everything.

Content note: this episode discusses separation and divorce, grief and the death of a parent. Be gentle with yourself while you listen. For support: Relationships Australia 1300 364 277 (relationships.org.au) — counselling and separation support. ...

The same conversation, again and again. The strange ideas. The day they don't know your face. Part two of our dementia special is about how you cope when a parent is becoming someone else — and how to look after yourself while you do.

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In this episode:
The Conversation: Part two of our two-par...

We all walk into a room and forget why we came in. So how do you tell ordinary forgetfulness from the early signs of something more? This week, in part one of our two-part dementia special, geriatrician Dr Stephanie Ward shows us what to actually look for.

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In this episode:
The Conversation: Part on...

Most of us have a conversation we keep avoiding – about ageing, about more help at home, about dying. In this week's episode, recorded live in Sydney, palliative care physician Dr Kathryn Mannix shows us how to have that tender conversation.

Recorded live at our Stay For Supper event, Sarah Macdonald sits down with Dr Kathryn Mannix — global campaigner, author of With the End in Mind and Listen, and palliative ca...

Dementia is the leading cause of death in Australia, and a lot of what we believe about it is making things worse. This week, meet the man who moved in. Ageing parents? You've got them. We've got you.

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In this episode:
Our youngest guest yet. At 21...

Sarah Macdonald and Bianca Dye on caring solo for a mum with dementia when you have no kids and no siblings to share the load – and why "I don't have children" doesn't disqualify you from the sandwich generation.

This week Sarah Macdonald is joined by broadcaster Bianca Dye: an only child, with no kids of her own, and the sole carer for her 81-year-old mum, who has Alzheimer's-form dementia.

Bianca keeps apologising fo...

Ageing parents? You've got them. We've got you.

This week Sarah Macdonald is joined by Dr Joanne Bennett from the Australian Catholic University, designer of the upcoming 'Thriving Without Driving' program, to unpack one of the most loaded conversations in the sandwich generation: taking the keys.

Together they map the three kinds of older drivers (the acceptors, the reluctants and the resistors), why stopping drivin...

Former NSW Premier Bob Carr on losing his wife Helena, and the year of grief that followed. A long, honest conversation about bereavement.

Ageing parents? You've got them. We've got you.

In 2023, Bob Carr's wife Helena died of an aneurysm in his arms in Vienna, after a night at the opera. She'd been his constant companion for more than 50 years. The former NSW Premier and Foreign Minister has written about it in his book, Bring Bac...

86% of us never have this conversation with our ageing parents. So we built you a way in. Free guide at https://putthekettleon.com.au — and a podcast episode to walk you through it. Ageing parents? You've got them. We've got you.

JOIN THE CLUB: Visit https://clubsandwich.community to join the tribe, access resources, and find our private Facebook community.
SEND US YOUR QUESTION: hello@clubsandwich.community

In this episod...

Sandwich-generation carers don't get a holiday — not even on Mother's Day. Ageing parents? You've got them. We've got you.

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SEND US YOUR QUESTION: hello@clubsandwich.community

In this episode:
The Conversation: Sarah Macdonald and clinical psychologist Jo Lamble unpack the relationship shift nobody wa...

If a glass of wine has become your shortcut from caregiving stress to “I can finally exhale”, this episode is for you.

Ageing parents? You’ve got them. We’ve got you.

JOIN THE CLUB: Visit https://clubsandwich.community to join the tribe, access resources, and find our private Facebook community.

SEND US YOUR QUESTION: hello@clubsandwich.community

In this episode:

The Conversation: Sarah Macdonald and Melissa...

Trying to work out aged care in Australia before you are forced into it? This episode is your practical starting point. Sarah Macdonald and Linda Mellors break down how aged care works, what My Aged Care actually does, when to start, what home care packages mean, and how to make early decisions that can save families stress later.

Ageing parents? You’ve got them. We’ve got you.

In this episode
The Conversation: Sarah...

Are your parents living longer, but not necessarily living well? In this episode, Sarah Macdonald talks with author Lucinda Holdforth about the private thoughts many carers have but rarely say out loud: what happens when old age stretches on, frailty deepens, dementia changes the person you love, and the caring role starts to swallow your own life.

Ageing par...