In this episode of the Knoodle Founders Hour, host Rosaria Cain sits down with Dr. Gabrielle Ficchi, the co-founder of the nonprofit Care 4 the Caregivers, to discuss her mission to support and empower families raising children with disabilities.
Growing up with a disability, Dr. Ficchi noticed a stark contrast: while she received abundant resources and therapy, her parents were left in the waiting room with little guidance or support. This observation fueled her academic journey, culminating in a Ph.D. dissertation that designed a “pie in the sky” support program for caregivers. After a serendipitous meeting with her co-founder, who read her entire 160-page dissertation, that vision became a reality. Today, her organization provides mental health counseling, parent education, and community connection to thousands of families, proving that when caregivers are supported, the entire family thrives.
In this episode, you’ll discover:
- The Isolation of Caregiving: Why parents of children with disabilities often face severe burnout and isolation as they are forced to become overnight medical experts, and how Care 4 the Caregivers combats this with over 400 community events a year.
- Disability-Led Leadership: Why it is critical for disability organizations to actually have disabled individuals in leadership roles, and how their team’s personal experiences shape their highly effective, empathetic programs.
- The Power of Interdependence: Dr. Ficchi’s insights on why disability is a natural part of life (representing the world’s largest minority group) and why society needs to shift from trying to “fix” individuals to creating accessible, accommodating communities.
- Evidence-Based Impact: The remarkable results of their “Thriving Together” study, where 100% of participating caregivers saw improvements across every single quality-of-life metric after just six months of structured support.
- Advocacy Through Collaboration: How Dr. Ficchi is moving the needle on disability rights by helping form the Disability Advocacy and Policy Alliance (DAPA) to unite various organizations under a collective, powerful voice.
For anyone navigating the complexities of caregiving, advocating for systemic change, or running a mission-driven nonprofit, this episode offers a profound look at the power of community and resilience.
Listen to the full episode of the Knoodle Founders Hour podcast to hear Dr. Ficchi’s inspiring journey and learn how supporting the caregiver transforms the whole family.
Full Transcript
Rosaria Cain 0:01
Good morning, everyone. Good morning, Gabrielle Ficchi. I’m glad you could join us. Gabrielle is founder of Care 4 the Caregivers, a nonprofit, and she is the founder. And we’re going to be talking to Gabrielle about this today. So, can you give me an elevator speech on Care 4 the Caregivers, and tell us exactly what you do, and what your mission is.
Dr. Gabrielle Ficchi 0:24
Sure, yes. So, Care 4 the Caregivers is a nonprofit that’s focused on caring for family members who are raising children with disabilities.
Rosaria Cain 0:35
Okay.
Dr. Gabrielle Ficchi 0:35
So our whole mission is to make sure that the parents and other family members are seen and supported on this journey. They often lack a lot of support, and so we wanted to make sure that they had what they needed in this journey. And then, as sort of an expansion of that, making sure that once the parents have what they need, the family can thrive and function as a whole, so we support the whole family on the disability journey.
Rosaria Cain 1:05
What kind of challenges and struggles do they encounter when their child is first diagnosed with a disability?
Dr. Gabrielle Ficchi 1:12
Oh, that’s a great question. I think the one that we see most often is that they don’t really know where to turn.
Rosaria Cain 1:20
Right?
Dr. Gabrielle Ficchi 1:21
There’s so much information you’re inundated in the beginning of a diagnosis journey, often with unfortunately not very positive information either. It’s a lot of, you know, what you can expect, but framed in a more negative light. And so, care, one of our pillars that Care 4 the Caregivers is really doing some education around disability and helping parents to see sort of a different view, if you will, of what this process could be like if they’re supported and their child is properly supported and they have the resources in place. How can they make this an empowering journey, because so often that that journey starts as anything but empowering, and I think that’s a huge challenge. I think one of the other biggest ones we see is that parents are often very isolated. Oftentimes, disability caregiving can be its own kind of full time job, and so once you’re in that day to day, you become isolated from the rest of your community, you become isolated just by people not understanding, and then we see a lot of depression and anxiety in this population as a result, so I’d say those are the bigger challenges that were, we look to address.
Rosaria Cain 2:47
No, I, and I bet there’s a lot of day to day challenges than just doing the work.
Dr. Gabrielle Ficchi 2:51
Oh, for sure. Yeah, it’s like I said, it becomes its own full time job, right? These parents are expected to suddenly become doctors, suddenly become physical therapists, suddenly become, you know, the people with all of the answers, like they didn’t, they didn’t go get the medical degree, they had a law degree, they didn’t, you know, foresee this in their future, but with as much information as you’re getting inundated with, really the person doing the day to day work is them.
Rosaria Cain 3:22
And I’m sure it’s strenuous and backbreaking work in some cases, too.
Dr. Gabrielle Ficchi 3:26
In some cases, absolutely, you know, especially as your child ages, if they need more physical assistance, or what we call full care, that can be really strenuous, but I think at its core, it’s really just an emotional toll, and just the constant pressure of, “Am I doing the right things?”
Rosaria Cain 3:49
Right?
Dr. Gabrielle Ficchi 3:50
“Am I making the right choice?” We often say this journey doesn’t come with a guidebook, right? So, am I making the right choice? How do I know that I’m making the right choice? What’s the next step for me and my family, and so then you, you know, we see it all the time, your circle tends to get smaller and smaller because it’s just easier that way, but then that has its long-term consequences as well.
Rosaria Cain 4:14
Sure. Now, tell me about, now that you’ve set that table, tell me about the mission and how Care 4 the Caregivers helps with that mission.
Dr. Gabrielle Ficchi 4:26
Absolutely, so we have pillars based on what families need most. So we have a mental health component, and that involves parents can get free counseling sessions from Care $ the Caregivers from therapists who are all disability informed, so that’s a new model to where a lot of these families who have sought mental health support in the past from. We’re coming up against barriers to mental health professionals not understanding their situation or being too intimidated by their situation to help. We’ve had several families find us who say we’re the second or third therapist because they’ve been turned away because their situation is quote a lot, right? So we’ve really tried to build an environment where we have disability-informed mental health professionals that understand their journey enough to be helpful and to help them through it, and so that’s our counseling. We also run free support groups for parents, so they can come and find community, our educational pillar is another one, so we do parenting classes, we do a lot of classes centered around parenting skills and how to develop those for your child with a disability, and then we also do seminars on how to better care for you as a parent or loved one, and center yourself in this journey. And then we run another class on independent living, and how to bring that into your lives while you’re raising your child. And then our other pillar is our community events and connection, and that’s where we’re really addressing that isolation piece. Care for the caregivers has a wonderful team of people that just last year alone put on 400 community events and meetups all around Phoenix and the rest of the state, so we have Phoenix, Tucson, and Flagstaff, that all have events, and I was 400 opportunities for them to come out into their community and meet people that were going through the same thing.
Rosaria Cain 6:51
That’s so impressive. So you guys are like a lifeline to these people in so many ways.
Dr. Gabrielle Ficchi 6:57
That’s really sweet. We really try to be, you know, we want to be that point of contact, that says we’re here to hold you, we’re here to support you, we’re here to get you through this. What do you need?
Rosaria Cain 7:08
How did this organization start? So, you, you’re a co-founder of the organization, correct?
Dr. Gabrielle Ficchi 7:13
I am, yes!
Rosaria Cain 7:13
So, tell me, how did that happen?
Dr. Gabrielle Ficchi 7:16
Yeah, so, um, Care 4 the Caregivers really started as an idea, I was so, when I was in school, both for my Master’s and my PhD, my focus was: How do we better support families who are raising disabled children? Because I had seen from the time I was pretty young, that like, there were a lot of resources for me, right? I was born with my disability, and from the get-go, it was, well, she can have this therapy, and she can go to this service, and she can do all of these things, and then my parents waited in the waiting room, right, like there was nobody supporting them or guiding them on what to do. I consider myself very fortunate and very lucky that my parents afforded me a lot of opportunities, and they always prioritize my independence and my ability to grow and flourish. But as I got older, I realized that I was more the exception than the rule, and a lot of parents didn’t really know how to encourage those things in their disabled children, and so I set out to find out why. Like, why is it that so many kids with disabilities are not as independent and maybe don’t have the opportunity to reach their full potential, and I really wanted to help mitigate that as much as I could, and what it came down to in all of my research was the families need to be better supported, they need to understand from a different perspective how to come at this, so you are encouraging that growth and that potential, but at the same time you’re encouraging parents to stay true to themselves and not get lost in this journey, so what that all culminated in was a dissertation where I designed a sort of pie in the sky parent support program. How would we address all of these barriers that my research is uncovering? Like, what could that look like, and I designed a program, never expecting it to, you know, at the time I was doing it for a grade, and I was like, this could be, this could be really beneficial, and then I met my co-founder, right as I had finished that dissertation, my husband, who is also a wheelchair user, and I were speaking to a group of parents who were in an advocacy course to better use those resources, and so every year my husband and I would go and present on our lives and how we were living independently and. Resources we were using, so the year of my dissertation, Michelle, who’s my co-founder, happened to be in the audience, and she has two autistic children herself, and she had really started looking into where was better support for her, like her kids were very well supported, but she went through a very difficult time and couldn’t find any support for herself, so we, I was presenting on that dissertation, and at this point we say it was Kismet, because she asked me if she could read it, and I said, “You want to read my whole dissertation? Like, first of all, we just met, thinking of, “Well, I don’t think anybody that has been to read it cover to cover, but sure, knock yourself out at the 160 pages,” and she called me a week later and said, “I think we could do this”
Rosaria Cain 8:04
Now, dissertation, that means you were going for your Doctorate.
Dr. Gabrielle Ficchi 8:16
Yes.
Rosaria Cain 9:05
Congratulations. I should say, Professor Fichi, correct. And, and2 how accomplished are you?
Dr. Gabrielle Ficchi 11:02
Oh, thank you. I appreciate that.
Rosaria Cain 11:03
Oh, quite amazing, and quite a feat. What have people.. so, oh, is there more to the story on how you develop this? Keep going. I’m sorry,
Dr. Gabrielle Ficchi 11:11
And that’s how we met.
Rosaria Cain 11:12
I’m so.. I’m so impressed.
Dr. Gabrielle Ficchi 11:14
Luckily for us, that was six years ago, and we haven’t stopped since. We’ve kept going.
Rosaria Cain 11:22
See, that’s great. What if people don’t know that you wish they would?
Dr. Gabrielle Ficchi 11:28
About our nonprofit, or just in general?
Rosaria Cain 11:31
Well, first of all, about nonprofits, excuse me, about how when people care for their kids and they’re disabled, they need support, and what they can do, and but also about the disability community, because I know you do a lot of advocacy in that area as well.
Dr. Gabrielle Ficchi 11:50
Yeah, I think one of the biggest things that I, I really wish people understood is that disability is, well, first of all, we’re the largest minority in the world, so like everybody at some point in their lives is going to be impacted by the disability experience, whether you are born with it, whether you acquire it at some point in your life, or whether you age into it, everybody’s going to experience it at one point or another, and so it really should be a sense of community and community support, whereas right now I think a lot of our disability models are centered around like: How do we fix the individual or fix the problem or fix the situation? Whereas I think on a broader scale, what we really need to be looking at is: How do we make societal change to accommodate everybody, so that eventually everybody has what they need without it having to be such a feat, right? But you have to understand to really do that, and seeing the value in that, you have to understand that it applies to everyone, and so I think that’s a really important piece of the education. I also wish that people understood that disability is it’s a natural part of life and the families that we support on a daily basis, or my fellow community members, they, we all have the right to exist and to take up space and to be a part of our community, and we should all be working together to make that as barrier-free as possible.
Rosaria Cain 13:44
How do you find the barriers? Is it getting better?
Dr. Gabrielle Ficchi 13:47
I think in a lot of ways we’re making progress, and in a lot of ways we still have a long way to go.
Rosaria Cain 13:52
Yeah, so the struggle.
Dr. Gabrielle Ficchi 13:55
Yes, I think a lot of the barriers we see are attitudinal. If I’m being honest, I think there’s still a lot of misconception about disability and the disability experience and what it means to be disabled and what individuals like myself are are capable of, right? I think a lot of those barriers come from preconceived notions of our capabilities and what we can do or not do,. And then I think the other piece is understanding what we call interdependence, so if disabled people have access to the resources we need and to the help we need, right, we can function in society just like anybody else, but we devalue that as a society, because sometimes it requires assistance from other people, whereas, like in our view, when you’re part of this community, that’s just part of your life, but that’s not a view that’s widely accepted, yet.
Rosaria Cain 15:02
You know, and it should be.
Dr. Gabrielle Ficchi 15:07
Yeah.
Rosaria Cain 15:07
So you have all these different facets that you do. You’re in advocacy, you’ve created Care 4 the Caregivers, and all of this. What do you hope to change, besides what you just talked about, what do you hope to change. I know we talked about the preconceived notions and how people sometimes get it wrong, and we have a lot of progress to make. Where do you, where do you see the biggest benefits of change?
Dr. Gabrielle Ficchi 15:36
For me, I think it starts, it really starts in the family unit, and that’s why Care 4 the Caregivers is so important to me. It’s why it means so much to all of us that do it, is because if a family can be properly supported, properly educated, if they have access to what they need, if they don’t feel isolated, then we’re creating more environments where disability is more widely accepted, right? But right now, so much of the experience is a fight, and so it’s hard to embrace an experience you have to fight for. So, to me, if we can really change the structure of that support for these families, then we can really change what disability means and what it starts to look like.
Rosaria Cain 16:31
Wow, and that’s a beautiful goal. And how much progress are you seeing in that goal? Do you see it happening in the near term, or do you think it’s going to take years and years to get there.
Dr. Gabrielle Ficchi 16:42
I consider myself very lucky for what I get to do, because I get to see that progress on a pretty regular basis for the people that we help, which is great. I will say Care 4 the Caregivers recently wrote an evidence-based study for all of our programming, we put all of those pillars I was mentioning into a program called Thriving Together, which models each parent going through each piece of the program over a six month period, so that they get access to all of our supports and resources and community, and just in that alone, we’ve seen parents make leaps and bounds in success. So, I think that gives me a lot of hope to say, like, if we can continue doing this, if we can keep on this trajectory, and we can make sure more parents and more family members have access to these resources, we can make real change.
Rosaria Cain 17:42
How many families are involved?
Dr. Gabrielle Ficchi 17:45
That’s a great question. So, across the state, we serve about 3000 families a year, but then we also have our online resources, and a lot of our programming is virtual as well, because we know our only in-person base is Arizona right now, and we want people to feel supported anywhere they are, and so through our virtual resources we get anywhere from eight to 10,000 visitors a week. So,
Rosaria Cain 18:18
How unusual is Care 4 the Caregivers. Are there a lot of organizations like this, or is this truly unique?
Dr. Gabrielle Ficchi 18:27
We, as far as my team and I know, we really are the only ones.
Rosaria Cain 18:31
I looked online to see if I could find any others, but I couldn’t find any.
Dr. Gabrielle Ficchi 18:37
No, I mean, it really centering the parent and the family experience is really a new idea, and it’s one, like I said, that’s proven to be successful. I think the other really successful piece of Care 4 the Caregivers that makes us different is that we are disability and caregiver led, so a lot of disability organizations that are helping the disability community don’t have disabled leadership. Both my co-founder and myself identify as disabled. The two other very pivotal members of our team, one is they’re both caregivers themselves, and one as a disabled parent, and so, like, all of us have come together to recognize the importance of this support, but also practice what we preach, right? If you’re saying disabled people deserve to be in these spaces, and families deserve to be seen and supported, there we shouldn’t be making decisions for this community without this community, and so many disability organizations don’t have disabled individuals in their leadership.
Rosaria Cain 19:51
And isn’t this true in other communities as well?
Dr. Gabrielle Ficchi 19:54
Of course.
Rosaria Cain 19:54
So I mean, shouldn’t we be making gains everywhere?
Dr. Gabrielle Ficchi 19:58
Yeah.
Rosaria Cain 19:58
For the disabled.
Dr. Gabrielle Ficchi 20:01
I, from your lips and mine, yes, you know, we can all agree. I think it’s like I said, the concept of it is still really new, which is shocking to me, because we’re in 2026.
Rosaria Cain 20:14
Yes.
Dr. Gabrielle Ficchi 20:14
Right, there are successful, disabled individuals everywhere, but it’s, we’re still fighting against what people think to be true.
Rosaria Cain 20:24
Yes, I agree. It’s, it’s almost as if we need to tell the stories more, and in bigger ways, so that people become more aware of it.
Dr. Gabrielle Ficchi 20:33
Absolutely.
Rosaria Cain 20:35
How hard is it running a nonprofit? Because we do have some nonprofit clients. I know it’s been challenging. How do you approach that?
Dr. Gabrielle Ficchi 20:47
That’s a great question. I think where I come from that the most is, yes, it’s challenging. I think right now one of the biggest challenges that nonprofits face is is, I say, funding, but not just in the way of, like, you know, day-to-day operation, but, like, the landscape of, you know, how we’re getting funding, and all of that is really changing right now. I think that’s really challenging, but I think the other big piece is there’s so much behind the scenes work that you know a lot of people don’t see, and, like I said earlier, this is a for the four of us that are really, you know, in the weeds and doing this day to day, it’s a first and foremost a passion project, and so,
Rosaria Cain 21:42
It’s personal.
Dr. Gabrielle Ficchi 21:43
It’s very personal. Our leadership is made up of myself and my co-founder, and then our two other executive team members. One, she.. we go all the way back to grad school, and like, really wanting to start something like this, and then the other one is a caregiver that has gone through. She went through our programming in the very beginning, and then came on to help us expand it, because we had helped her so much in her journey, and so
Rosaria Cain 22:18
It was personal for her, too.
Dr. Gabrielle Ficchi 22:19
In my opinion, it doesn’t get more personal than that for the four of us, but I think that’s part of our strength, right? I think that’s part of what keeps us showing up every day and doing the work, is because we know better than anybody how needed it is and how important it is,
Rosaria Cain 22:35
Or the fact that you’re all fighters.
Dr. Gabrielle Ficchi 22:38
Yeah, well.
Rosaria Cain 22:38
So you’re kind of accustomed to to fighting for what you believe,
Dr. Gabrielle Ficchi 22:43
Yeah. We’ve all come through the adversity, and I think we have, you know, we now want to pay it forward.
Rosaria Cain 22:51
I think that’s great. Has it been harder than you thought it might be?
Dr. Gabrielle Ficchi 22:55
I think, I think so. I think there are pieces of it that I didn’t expect to be as challenging. I think one of the hard parts that I didn’t necessarily expect is that there is a lot of understanding that children in our community need to be supported, so you’ll see a lot of programming and support for helping kids with disabilities, one of our hurdles, I think, is trying to explain to people if the caregiver is not okay, the children are not okay,
Rosaria Cain 23:31
No one’s okay.
Dr. Gabrielle Ficchi 23:32
No one’s okay, but we still constantly get questions from donors and funders that where are your kid events, what about the kids, and it’s we do have some family programming, but centering the caregiver for us is very purposeful and essential. We want them to have a space where they know that they matter, and so we’ve cultivated it that way. But you have to really understand our mission and our why to understand why we’re doing that.
Rosaria Cain 24:02
That why is the whole insight that everything is built on.
Dr. Gabrielle Ficchi 24:05
Yes.
Rosaria Cain 24:06
And I understand that. I think that makes complete sense.
Dr. Gabrielle Ficchi 24:09
I appreciate that, because it means it doesn’t always make sense, but I think, once you understand it and can put the pieces together, it makes more sense.
Rosaria Cain 24:19
Think about it this way, it’s almost like the most obvious marketing principle that we have is that you look for the insight, you look for what makes you different, and it’s always an obvious truth that caregiver, for instance, caregivers need to be taken care of, so they can take care of the people they love.
Dr. Gabrielle Ficchi 24:37
100%
Rosaria Cain 24:38
It’s an insight, it’s obvious, but yet the light bulb doesn’t go on until somebody like you and your organization and your special group of people put that in front of people and make a go of it.
Dr. Gabrielle Ficchi 24:50
Yep.
Rosaria Cain 24:51
No, I think that’s outstanding. What misconceptions do people have about nonprofits in general?
Dr. Gabrielle Ficchi 24:58
Misconceptions about nonprofits, I think. Oh, the one of the biggest misconceptions is that it’s easier than it is. I think another one that we come up against sometimes is like that nonprofits really are for the community, and in a sense we work for the community we serve. So, at least in my observation, in doing this the last six years, there are some, some nonprofits that have maybe lost the mission a little bit, right, and so there’s very successful nonprofits that are doing a lot of good, but I think that misconception comes in when we as a community forget that the community is essentially supposed to be our guiding principle, and not a lot of people remember that I think you know we remind ourselves all the time we work for them. These are these are the people and the processes we’re working for. This is not, I think it’s a big difference from a for-profit company, but it doesn’t always get articulated or explained.
Rosaria Cain 26:19
No, I think that makes sense. Now that the current climate is especially interesting right now.
Dr. Gabrielle Ficchi 26:25
Oh, yes, ma’am.
Rosaria Cain 26:27
And the temperature of our country, is that causing some headwinds for you, like a lot of nonprofits?
Dr. Gabrielle Ficchi 26:33
I mean, I don’t think anybody in the nonprofit space can be immune,
Rosaria Cain 26:38
Yeah.
Dr. Gabrielle Ficchi 26:38
to that right now. Like, we have so many shifts in funding priorities, and we have a loss of funding in a lot of areas, and we have, we’ve almost created some permission structures for people to, to not be as supportive of of one another, it’s become a very individualized way of looking at the world, right now in our society, and nonprofits are the exact opposite of everyone for themselves, right. We are by definition one for all and all for one, and I just think that we’re not in that space as a whole right now, so that definitely makes it more challenging.
Rosaria Cain 27:26
That may be an understatement. I’m not sure, but that may be an understatement. How are you letting people know about your mission right now? What types of things are you doing?
Dr. Gabrielle Ficchi 27:39
We are so fortunate to be in the community as much as we are. If you look at our events calendar, there’s at least 30 different places you can see us and find us every month, so it’s a lot of just like getting out there and putting a face to what we’re doing. We’re also really fortunate that parents who have gone through our programming, have become sort of like unofficial ambassadors in a way, and they spread our word, which is great opportunities like this one, just getting a chance to really explain our mission and where we come from, because, like I said, it’s so unique to a lot of what people are used to, so it does take some explanation.
Rosaria Cain 28:24
No, it does, but it’s so fascinating because it’s not something people really think about.
Dr. Gabrielle Ficchi 28:30
Yeah.
Rosaria Cain 28:31
Unless it’s something in their lives, and then they think about it all the time. I was looking at your website. Tell me, and tell our listeners about the.. I want to make sure I get this right. That’s why I’m reading it. The Disability Advocacy and Policy Alliance, and how it was formed. I know you have a lot about that on your site. It sounded very interesting to me.
Dr. Gabrielle Ficchi 28:51
Yeah, so the alliance was formed because there was a need for advocating for our community, but there was a need to do it in a way that we could have a collective voice, because so, so much of our experience is universal, but then so much of it is also different, and so we wanted to make sure that we were advocating in a way that represented the community as a whole, and so it really gave us the opportunity to bring some really key disability organizations together, and what makes it really unique is that we are all serving this community in some way, so we’re all able to come together and look at it from different angles and different facets, and say, are we considering this? Is this affecting who you’re seeing? Is this affecting, you know, your services or our services? And how do we collectively present this to the community in a way that can be understandable, and that they can engage on a level that feels comfortable? For them, because I think at the heart of disability advocacy we need community representation, right, to advocate for disability rights and disability needs, you need disabled people.
Rosaria Cain 30:17
That makes perfect sense.
Dr. Gabrielle Ficchi 30:19
But they need to be able to do it in a way that fits for them, in a way that they’re comfortable with, in a way that their disability allows them to, like, and so having the alliance and having different people represent different parts of that makes sure that everybody can engage on some level. So, it’s been really great.
Rosaria Cain 30:41
Oh, I think that it walk us through the core values of DAPA, because I was fascinated by those.
Dr. Gabrielle Ficchi 30:47
Yeah, well, DAPA, first and foremost, I should say, is it’s a collective, it’s really, my co-founder’s baby, if you will. So, I don’t want to take that away from her. Bbut I think at our core it’s collaboration. You can’t, in so much of our space has gotten polarized in what can I do for me, what does this group need, or what does that group need, and really, we can’t advance without everybody, but it goes back to what we were saying earlier, right? Of like the culture we’re in right now is very everyone for themselves. And so collaboration and being able to bring as many people as we can together in one space at one time, is that’s really where we see the most value and the most change.
Rosaria Cain 31:50
It’s amazing what’s going on right now, but every every plank goes two directions. I mean, I think it’ll swing back.
Dr. Gabrielle Ficchi 32:00
I think so too.
Rosaria Cain 32:01
The pendulum swings both ways. It’s gone really far. It’ll go back the other way.
Dr. Gabrielle Ficchi 32:08
Here’s to hoping.
Rosaria Cain 32:10
Yes. No. Here’s to hoping. Now, kind of changing the conversation a little bit to you as a founder, which is a fascinating subject for me. What characteristics do you think make a good leader?
Dr. Gabrielle Ficchi 32:26
That’s a great question. I really think to be a good leader you need to understand what your strengths are, and then you need to understand the strengths of those around you. So I think oftentimes leaders, anybody leaning in any capacity, can get pulled to kind of, if I want something done right, I do it myself, kind of mindset, and what I’ve learned over the years is like none of us are good at all of the things right, and so to be a good leader means not only identifying other people’s talents, but also encouraging them. Encouraging them, so that we can all work together and build something really strong and sustainable, rather than being the leader that says I want to do this on my own, like I want to be the one that does the things it’s really been about. Oh, this person would be really good in this space, right? I’m really good in this space, she’s really good in that space. If we put all of this together, and if they’re encouraged to use those skills and talents, we could build something really amazing.
Rosaria Cain 33:41
I think that’s well said. What milestones have you seen since you’ve started that really make you know you’re on to something?
Dr. Gabrielle Ficchi 33:50
I think the first really big one was when we started being able to expand our community reach right Care 4 the Caregivers was fortunate to build slowly, so we were putting the pieces in place during a global pandemic, which you know caused a lot of upheaval and havoc, but also gave us the opportunity to build a lot before we launched, so a lot was in place, a lot was happening slowly. We were able to offer bits and pieces as we went, and then to see how much we’ve grown that too. I think is it’s just incredible, like as if you told me six years ago that we would be doing all of these events and serving that number of family that would have been like you’re you’re crazy, so watching that number climb has been amazing. I think the other really big milestone was being able to conduct the study because. For a long time, it was the four of us saying, “This works. Look, this works. You can see it. People are happier. Families are doing better. People are finding themselves again. Their kids are becoming more independent,” like we had it right in front of our faces, but to be able to say we studied it, and it’s proving to be evidence-based and effective, I think, just brings us to the next level.
Rosaria Cain 34:37
Tell us about the study.
Dr. Gabrielle Ficchi 35:29
Yeah, so we had, we enrolled 30 caregivers into our first six month program, and that’s the program I was talking about that’s called Thriving Together, and that one you get access to our mental health support, our parent education, our community events, all within a six month period. So, how that’s different is that anybody else can do any of our services kind of a la carte, right. So, if you’re a caregiver and you want community, you can go to our calendar, and you’re welcome at any of our events, trainings, classes, anything you want. But what we found is when we put it all together, that’s where parents are seeing the most benefit, because we’re coming at it from all angles, if you will. So we enrolled 30 parents into a cohort, and over six months they had access to all of our services, and in the beginning we did a quality of life survey to see where they were and how they were doing. We also did entrance interviews, and by the end of the six months every caregiver went up in every quality of life metric.
Rosaria Cain 36:46
Wow, that’s 100%.
Dr. Gabrielle Ficchi 36:48
Which was unbelievable. I mean, some more so in some than others, right? There was some variation, but every measure of quality of life improved, and we were able to do exit interviews and hear about how their lives had changed in just a six month period, but it was six months of making sure they were supported, making sure they had what they needed, but also reframing their perspective on this experience, and on what having a disabled child means, and what that means for them, and for their child, and giving them the permission to find their way back to themselves in this process.
Rosaria Cain 37:34
And that’s what it’s all about, isn’t it?
Dr. Gabrielle Ficchi 37:37
And we had parents who went back to work, we had parents whose kids were now more independent than they were when they started. We had parents who were reconnecting with friends and family they hadn’t seen in years. We had parents who were telling us by the end, like I was lost, I didn’t see a light at the end of the tunnel. Now I see a light. I know that I’m going to be okay. I know that my kid’s going to be okay. We can’t take away all your challenges in six months, but we can help give you the support you need to work through them.
Rosaria Cain 38:15
So, I guess it really improves their mindset and the way, the way they look at the world, after being taken care of. That’s great.
Dr. Gabrielle Ficchi 38:23
And after just remembering that they matter too, it makes a big difference.
Rosaria Cain 38:30
Well, on a personal basis, as we wind this down just a little bit, what do you do for fun? What habits and routines keep you sane with all this work and care for the caregivers and advocacy, and all that you do?
Dr. Gabrielle Ficchi 38:43
That’s an interesting question, only because every time I go to answer it, people are like, is she serious? But I love what I do, and I remind myself every day how fortunate I am to turn the dreams I had into a reality, and so, yes, you need breaks, and you need to unwind and de-stress. I have my dogs, are you know, my source of sanity have been for a long time. My husband and I treat them like our kids, and so I make sure to spend time there whenever I can, you know. I have an extremely supportive partner who I couldn’t do any of this without. So, really, when we get those moments, it’s just making sure that, you know, we come together a little bit and go do something fun, or, you know, go hang out with friends or any of those things, but it sometimes I forget because I’m having a lot of fun doing what I’m doing, doesn’t mean the grind’s not there.
Rosaria Cain 39:31
Still work, a little bit.
Dr. Gabrielle Ficchi 39:39
Yeah,
Rosaria Cain 39:41
but fun.
Dr. Gabrielle Ficchi 39:55
but it’s fun, and it’s, it’s really rewarding and. Like I said, you know, like when I wrote the dissertation, when I used to talk about what I wanted to do, it was like I want to help this community, but I want to do it in a way that makes change, and so every time I remind myself that that’s what I’m doing, I’m like, well, it doesn’t, doesn’t seem so bad, you know, like even the hard parts are like you gotta remind yourself to be really, really grateful.
Rosaria Cain 40:24
I think that’s what’s sad. With all that you do? This is a hard question. What do you want to be known for?
Dr. Gabrielle Ficchi 40:31
Oh, I like that question. What do I want to be known for? I think I very purposefully sort of varied all the things I get to do, so between teaching at the University of Phoenix and my therapy practice and the nonprofit, I think what it really comes down to is I want to be known as somebody who really moved the needle for this community, and so I think that’s why I’m coming at it really from three different ways, you know, of supporting the families directly, and of teaching, you know, our future mental health professionals about how to be better equipped to serve the disability community. I get to do that a lot, and then with the therapy practice, I get to do it more one on one. So I think if, if I got to, you know, write the legacy myself, it would, it would be somebody who really progressed, not just when we think of progression, we think of like disability rights and barriers. I want to progress in that way too, but to me, true success looks like we’ve reframed how we see disability as a society, so if I could be known for that, that would be pretty awesome.
Rosaria Cain 44:24
Professor Ficchi, you are a woman that’s good that gets things done, and you should be very proud, and, and you are very proud of it, and everyone should be proud of you too.
Dr. Gabrielle Ficchi 43:24
I appreciate that.
Rosaria Cain 43:25
Thank you for coming in. You’ve made a difference in my day.
Dr. Gabrielle Ficchi 44:39
Yeah, thank you for having me. This has been great.
Rosaria Cain 44:43
My pleasure.