Multiple Sclerosis Centers of Excellence
Live Webinar for Caregivers: Adapting to a New Role and Identity
Caregivers manage a wide range of responsibilities, playing an important role in caring for their loved one at home and in the community. Some caregivers can experience confusion when thrust into a caregiver role and find it difficult to separate their role as a caregiver from their role as a spouse, intimate partner, family member, or friend. During this important webinar, we will cover challenges and adaptations of an MS Caregiver:
- Changes to your role and identity when your Veteran is diagnosed with MS
- Shifting relationships and role conflict
- Coping and grieving your old self, and accepting your evolving new self
- Impacts on your self-esteem and lifestyle
- Strategies for adapting and coping
- Emotional and psychological impact of caregiving
Join us to learn about adaptioning to a new role and identity, and about VA resources for caregivers of Veterans. (flyer)
Date: Tuesday, September 30, 2025
Time: 2-3:30 pm ET, 1-2:30 pm CT, 12-1:30 pm MT, 11 am-12:30 pm PT
Topic: MS Caregivers: Adapting to a New Role and Identity
Speakers: Alicia Sloan, MPH, MSW, LICSW and Bethany Ferguson, LCSW-C
Audience: Caregivers and Family Members of Veterans with MS
Modality: Virtual on Microsoft Teams
How to join on the day and time of the webinar.
Video: Click the following link on the day of the program (Meeting ID: 259 351 854 507).
- Your camera should be turned off.
- Make sure the "computer audio" circle is checked.
- Make sure the sound bar is turned up all the way.
- Click the button "Join now".
Phone: Call 1-872-701-0185 and enter Phone Conference ID 885 523 063#.
- Do not use video and phone, you will get feedback.
Troubleshooting: If the sound on your computer is not working, try the following.
- Click the following link on the day of the program (Meeting ID: 259 351 854 507).
- Your camera should be turned off.
- Make sure the "phone audio" circle is checked.
- Click the button "Join now".
- Enter your phone number and the system will call you.
- You can now view the webinar and listen on your phone.
If you have questions, please contact MSCentersofExcellence@va.gov.
Alicia Sloan is a Senior Social Worker in the Rehabilitation Care Services MS Clinics at the VA Puget Sound Health Care System in Seattle and American Lake sites. She has worked with the MS Center of Excellence-West since 2004. She has a passion for working with caregivers of Veterans with MS and other chronic illnesses. She is a graduate of Tulane University Schools of Social Work and Public Health and Tropical Medicine in New Orleans, LA.
Bethany Ferguson is a Clinical Social Worker and Certified Case Manager based at the Baltimore VA Medical Center. She is a graduate of the University of Maryland, Baltimore. She is currently the MS Center of Excellence-East Regional Social Worker and Baltimore VA Spinal Cord Injury and Disease Clinic Coordinator.
