Breaking the Silence: Trish Barbato on Menopause, Arthritis, and Advocacy

On today’s episode, we welcome Trish Barbato, the President and CEO of the Arthritis Society and the Co-Founder and Director of the Menopause Foundation of Canada. Trish is passionate about giving a voice to these often overlooked and underfunded causes and the people they impact.

Trish shares her deeply personal journey, detailing the severe symptoms and inadequate medical responses that ignited her passion for menopause advocacy, especially in the workplace.

 Discover how billions of dollars are lost because of the substantial economic and personal toll menopause can have on women in the workplace. We discuss the critical need for supportive workplace policies and the practical steps companies can take to foster an inclusive environment for women navigating menopause.

But that’s not all—Trish also dispels some common myths about arthritis, emphasizing that it’s not just an "old person’s disease." We learn how arthritis can affect anyone, from children to elite athletes, underscoring the importance of awareness and research for all age groups.

Trish’s unwavering dedication to shedding light on these misunderstood causes is nothing short of inspiring. Tune in to hear her insights and discover how you can be part of the movement to support those affected by menopause and arthritis.

Get Involved:
Arthritis Society of Canada
Menopause Foundation of Canada

Connect with Trish:
LinkedIn
Instagram - Arthritis Society
Instagram - Menopause Foundation

Resources:
Report: Menopause and Work in Canada

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Chapters

• 0:00 Impact of Menopause in the Workplace
• 4:11 Recognizing Menopause Impact in the Workplace
• 15:46 Addressing Menopause in the Workplace
• 21:21 Navigating Menopause Awareness and Advocacy
• 31:02 A Conversation on Arthritis and Fundraising
• 39:39 Empowering Leadership Through Listening and Connection

Transcript

Trish: 0:00

So if you think of 3.5 billion as just a conservative estimate, it just shows you the extent of the impact of this. So when you look at the numbers, we have a lot of lost days, so over half a million lost days of work that are attributed to menopause symptom management. And then the real bearer of this cost is women themselves. So this is in lost income and what happens is women are reducing their hours, they are reducing their pay, they are retiring early, they are leaving the workplace altogether about one in 10. And when you add that up to the economy and what that's lost, that's where you really get those high numbers of billions.

Amy: 0:50

Welcome to Voices of Leadership, the podcast that shines a spotlight on the remarkable women of the International Women's Forum. I'm your host, Amy, and I'm inviting you on a journey through the minds of trailblazers. On today's episode, we welcome Trish Barbato, the President and CEO of the Arthritis Society of Canada and the co-founder and director of the Menopause Foundation of Canada. Trish is a passionate advocate for giving a voice to these often overlooked and underfunded causes and the people they impact. In our conversation, Trish dispels common myths about arthritis and sheds light on critical issues surrounding menopause in the workplace, striving to normalize the conversation and reduce its significant economic impact on women and the broader economy. Hi, Trish, Welcome to the show. It's great to see you again.

Trish: 1:33

It is great to see you too.

Amy: 1:35

Thanks for taking the time. You are the co-founder of the Menopause Foundation of Canada and the CEO of the Arthritis Society, so you're doing incredible work on both fronts, but you're also incredibly busy, so I appreciate the time.

Trish: 1:48

Oh well, thank you very much. Yeah, it's great when you're really passionate about things and it doesn't seem like work at all.

Amy: 1:54

Oh, that's so great to hear. So you're a member of the Toronto Chapter. When did you join IWF and who introduced you?

Trish: 2:00

Yeah, I just joined. Lois Cormack was the one who connected me and if you know Lois, she's sort of like, well, you have to join. So I tend to do what she tells me and it's been great. And have you been to any events so far? I've been to a couple of events. I went to a small event which ended up being just fabulous, with about six women a walk down on the waterfront and that was just a great way to meet Yuki people who then introduced me to a number of other women, and it's just been really a great connector and networking opportunity for sure.

Amy: 2:35

Yeah, it's a great organization and the smaller events like the dine arounds and other things like that are really the best way to get to know members.

Trish: 2:43

Yeah, they're a lot more intimate. I'm really enjoying it.

Amy: 2:46

Oh, I'm so glad, Well welcome. It's so great to talk to new members too. Thank you, so I'd like to highlight that your work with the Menopause Foundation is strictly volunteer you and everyone else involved in the organization. So can you tell us about your menopause journey and how it contributed to you and your co-founder, janet's desire to create the Menopause Foundation of Canada?

Trish: 3:10

Well, I think for me, it was really related to my career, in that I was hyper-focused on being a CEO, and then I was in another role where I saw it as a stepping stone to become the CEO of a public company, which is ultimately my goal, and while working there this was a global company I started to have perimenopause and menopause symptoms that were so severe, in terms of the number of hot flashes and night sweats, that I was having sometimes 30 to 40 a day. It was relentless. I would be up almost all night and then needed to function the next day and it just would not go away. I tried to get help and was dismissed over and over again. I was given anti-anxiety medication, I was given sleeping pills, I was given antidepressants and no one really knew anything about it.

Trish: 4:11

And I am in the healthcare system I know the healthcare system really really well and I'm white and I'm privileged and I can pay for things and I could not get what I needed. I couldn't get anyone to help me and my work was suffering. I couldn't function at the level that I used to function. I lost confidence in myself, and so I thought, okay, this is crazy and I really wanted to do something about it. I became a patient advocate at a menopause clinic that was associated with the hospital. I knew Janet from the work that we had both worked at the same company and when we talked about it we just said this is actually unacceptable, completely and utterly unacceptable. That a universal transition that every single woman will go through is treated with such disrespect and disregard in the system. So we were really angry is how I would describe it, and it propelled action.

Amy: 5:19

Well, that's unfortunate that you had that experience, but I think what it propelled you to do is probably helping so many women, so I guess we're grateful for your anger.

Trish: 5:32

Yes, and I'm still angry.

Amy: 5:35

There's still so much work to do may not maybe know that they're in perimenopause or they're not in that transition yet. Can you give us a brief overview of the various symptoms?

Trish: 5:51

of perimenopause? Yeah, sure, and I'll say that we did. We've done two reports, but in the first report, just as it relates to symptoms, what we discovered is that most women knew the ones that come to mind right away the night sweats, the hot flashes women could identify that those were symptoms. When you got to a whole host of other symptoms, women did not know that they were related to perimenopause and menopause. So things like urinary tract infections, dryness, heart palpitations, joint pain, hair changes, skin changes. So there were so many other symptoms that women were not and could not connect the dots to. And I think this is a really fundamental issue, because there is no education, no one is warning you about what is about to happen to you.

Trish: 6:43

Women enter this period of these symptoms and they attribute it to other things. This is like almost universal. I have heard and read so many stories from our website and beyond. They say well, I thought I was just stressed out, I thought I was taking on too much. You know, they feel very alone, they think they're the only one going through it, they think they are failing, they think they have to suffer through it. It's just universal.

Trish: 7:08

And the symptoms in perimenopause primarily are the period irregularity. I mean that's like the real sign you are in perimenopause. You might have super, super heavy bleeding, then nothing at all for a few months. So there's this like erratic nature of your periods, in fact, because estrogens can actually spike during this period, you might have breast tenderness and other things associated with a lot of estrogen in your body, and then also the other symptoms that I just mentioned are also prevalent. So those are all various things, but everyone's different. One woman told me that it was very mentally focused for her. Her anxiety went through the roof, she experienced depression and had never experienced it before. So again, while it's a unique experience, we do have this, say 30 plus range of symptoms that women might experience.

Amy: 8:02

Well, and it coincides perimenopause with such a busy time in women's lives. It's difficult sometimes to divide it out as to what might be daily stress or job stress and anxiety versus the actual transition of perimenopause.

Trish: 8:18

Yeah, my sister is in her 40s, started having these symptoms and I've been talking about this for years, so it's not like she's uninformed. But she has a five-year-old and an 11-year-old and she just said I don't understand, how does anybody do this? How can you possibly take care of a family, have a career and be going through all these symptoms? And so it's almost like you can listen to people experiencing it, but until it happens to you, it's just very different when it hits your own body.

Amy: 8:57

And so you mentioned the report where you found that women knew the sort of traditional symptoms. Can you tell us a little bit about that first report, because I want to talk about both. You know how did you get the data and then you know the results. Are they on the website and where can people find them to get more information?

Trish: 9:15

Yeah, so. So Janet and I have great complementary skills. She's really a communication, marketing, pr sort of expert. I have more around strategy and that sort of thing.

Trish: 9:26

And one of the things we realized that there was no data in Canada. Essentially there was just nothing that you could look to, and we realized that that was the first thing we had to do, and so we worked with Leger you know very reliable and respected organization that does surveys and so they went out to Canadian women and did this in-depth survey and helped us collect the data from it, and so what we found is nothing that is surprising, but again, it was just the first stake in the ground. Women did not understand all of the symptoms that were related to perimenopause and menopause. They did feel alone to perimenopause and menopause. They did feel alone. They did not want to talk about it. There was a lot of taboo still associated with it, even though, again, it's this universal experience. They were not able to get help. So a lot of the things were validated in that first report, which is called the Silence and the Stigma Menopause in Canada and that can be found on our website, which is menopausefoundationcanadaca.

Amy: 10:27

Great and that's really good information. And you're right, it did need to be validated and now we know that that's actually the data and we can sort of go from there, which then led you to the menopause and work report, which is actually where we first met and I put that in quotations because you did a fantastic presentation for IWF about the menopause and work in Canada report and that's when I first learned about the report and your organization and your presentation was very, very eye-opening. So let's talk a little bit about that report. What was the scope and mandate of that report and why was this an area that you decided to focus your research on?

Trish: 11:04

So Janet and I thought about the various reports that were needed around menopause, including mental health, the gyneurinary issues of menopause there's so many areas but I felt pretty strongly that, even though it was quite taboo that we needed to talk about menopause in relation to the workplace, to talk about menopause in relation to the workplace.

Trish: 11:28

I feel that the health system will take a long time to be changed, to catch up, for physicians to be properly trained and educated.

Trish: 11:34

This all takes a long time, whereas on the employer side, employers want diversity and equity and inclusion. That DI mandate is strong through O Canada. This is part of it. This is part of equity for women and thinking about how can we make sure that women going through this stage in life can be retained in the workplace and that an employer can help a woman thrive. And so this report was really targeted to help look at the cost and the implications of menopause in the workplace in order to really rally employers, to put a spotlight on this, to say you should be paying attention to this. It affects a quarter of your workforce today, right now, and even much higher numbers when you think about those sectors that are very female dominated, like the charitable industry, like the healthcare industry, like the education sector. These are all predominantly women who are in these roles, and so they have an even larger percentage of women that will be impacted by this.

Amy: 12:49

Well, and those sectors that you mentioned too. Those women generally don't have the flexibility in their schedule to work from home or adjust. You know they have to be there. If they're a teacher or a nurse, you know it's difficult to adjust.

Trish: 13:06

Absolutely. We did some focus groups with the BC Nurses Union and it was so eye opening the weight that these women are carrying, not just their job alone, literally life and death situation in terms of what they are responsible for and accountable for. But then they are hiding their symptoms, they are trying to work within a structure that does not help them at all to manage their symptoms.

Amy: 13:35

So I'd like to talk about some of the details in the report, especially the economic impact. So the report talks about unmanaged menopause symptoms costing the Canadian economy I think it was an estimated $3.5 billion a year. Can you tell us about the specifics, about how that economic loss accumulates?

Trish: 14:08

do an estimation of what this is really related to in terms of money for employers and for the economy. So we work closely with them. I would say that, and they would say the same it's a conservative number. We need way more data to do a really true and more precise estimation. So if you think of 3.5 billion as just a conservative estimate, it just shows you the extent of the impact of this.

Trish: 14:29

So when you look at the numbers, we have a lot of lost days, so over half a million lost days of work that are attributed to menopause symptom management, and certainly I can understand that from my personal experience and many, many women who I've spoken to, how difficult it is. The other area is around the, so the lost productivity, which costs about almost 250 million annually, and then the real bearer of this cost is women themselves. So this is in lost income and what happens is women are reducing their hours, they are reducing their pay, they are retiring early, they are leaving the workplace altogether about one in 10. And when you add that up to the economy and what that's lost, that's where you really get those high numbers of billions.

Amy: 15:23

Well, I've heard you talk about the impact on the glass ceiling and women moving into the C-suite, or that 50% on boards that we're all striving for, and how does unmanaged symptoms and workplaces not being aware impact that?

Trish: 15:39

That really needs more research and we're really interested in doing that work. But you can see the connection I mean when you think about menopause. Menopause happens the one year anniversary of no period happens. For most women on average in Canada at 51. Perimenopause symptoms start two to 10 years before that. So you're into now, late thirties, early forties, when those symptoms are starting and the range can be 45 to 55. This is when women are reaching their peak roles in organizations where, if you think about the glass ceiling, they're in VP or senior vice president or executive vice president or CEO roles and they're looking to make their next jump. And if they don't have the energy, if they are sleep deprived, if they are prioritizing their home life over their career in order to manage their symptoms, then it's going to have an impact. How can it not have an impact? It's right squarely in that age range where women should be moving up.

Amy: 16:44

So then, how can companies begin to address menopause in the workplace and craft and implement policies around it to sort of prevent all the things you just talked about and help women then move forward in their goals for their career?

Trish: 16:58

Yeah, and I think this is another these are some of the data points that we saw from the report that about 70% of women said they would not feel comfortable speaking to their supervisor about their symptoms. So it just starts even there. They said that they would not be comfortable speaking to HR about their symptoms or their need. They would be embarrassed to ask for support. You know, about 30% said they thought that people would think they were old or weak or past their prime, and we see the ageism that's built into this as also compounding it. So we know that women really feel the impact of this at work, but also they want support. They feel that support from their workplace would make their workplace a better place to work. So there are benefits for workplaces to adopt and look at where they can support their employees. So what can they do? We really don't think this is a big lift for employers. This is not something that, oh, you're going to have to budget oodles of dollars to do something for women. It's really about taking a look.

Trish: 18:06

What do you have in your current policies? Is this mentioned? So, for example, even at Arthritis Society Canada, when I looked at our policy around, we have something around pregnancy, but it didn't really. It did not deal. We had no. The word menopause did not come up in any policy, so it's even just the recognition, like labeling it, saying the word out loud. So you can start with that. What are you able to do in terms of flexibility or covering time off or accommodation in a work arrangement within your policy? So that would be step one you can look at and you mentioned this. But what adaptations can be made in the work environment for women If they have to wear a uniform? Does it need to be polyester? Could it be something more comfortable and more breathable? So it's like small things that one can start thinking about. How can I make a change that will make it more comfortable for women going through this? Can I make a change that will make it more comfortable for women going through this?

Trish: 19:08

Education is really important and that's for everybody. It'll help women if they have more education about what they are going through, but their supervisors need to know as well so that they're really comfortable talking about it and that they have some idea of what is happening. In terms of having that awareness and looking at the benefit package that a company offers. If they offer benefits, do you cover the most current treatments and therapies that are available? So, basically, is your benefit package up to date to accommodate women who need help or who need treatment and that sort of thing? So these are some of the things I can do, and we have a lot. We have a wonderful toolkit and a lot of support for employers on our website, and those are all free. So we really encourage employers, large and small, to take a look and think about in their organization how they can create a win-win. This has a return on investment for employers.

Amy: 20:02

How they can create a win-win. This has a return on investment for employers. Well, I like how you said, both large and small companies, because if it's not too, it's not costly. You're right, it's about changing language and looking at what you already have, so it's good that both large and small companies could make these changes. Now you mentioned the report itself was to sort of ignite the workforce and educate workplaces. When it came out, did you send it to workplaces or industries or lobby groups? How are you helping educate from the top down in an organization?

Trish: 20:32

Yeah, that's so great. So we've done a lot of education already, and the report is also supporting other organizations who do education in this area. So I feel it's like this has helped raise the tide for all ships in a sense, and there is much more conversation about this. When Janet and I started this, there was no conversation, there was zero, there was nothing. We could have picked any name we wanted, because every name that had menopause in it was available. So you know, it's just.

Trish: 21:04

Even in the last four years, I feel like a lot of momentum has happened. Generally in North America, uk has always been a real leader in this regard, and so we're still learning and catching up to them in that regard, but we have still a long ways to go. I would say one thing that's been really interesting is the education sessions where employers thought, oh well, maybe we'll get 20 or 30 people and then 50 or 100 people show up, and for women to learn themselves about what's happening, but also, in the employer context, to start to think about what should we be doing? What could we be doing? I spoke to a woman who is in a leadership position at a senior living organization and it had just never dawned on her, literally, she had never thought about it before that. Oh yes, you're right that this is happening to women and they have breaks at a certain time, and you know, we have a lot of inflexibility and what can we do to support them? So I think it's like that the light bulb goes off.

Trish: 22:17

It's like ah yes, we should do something yes, we should do something.

Amy: 22:24

Well, we should encourage all of our IWF members to bring this forward at all of their organizations, because we have a big voice, so we should use it.

Trish: 22:29

Yes, honestly, and it's funny. I actually asked some IWF members who had really worked hard in their own right to break down barriers in their respective sectors Did this ever come up Like barriers in their respective sectors? Did this ever come up Like was this ever something that you had to work on? And they basically said we had so many things that we had to fight for, you know, a place at the table, our voice to even be heard. So there's been work. In some ways, it's like the women before us who had to break down barriers just generally in terms of workplaces, have opened the doors for a report like this to even be even be able to be, uh, communicated and read and respected. You know, it's because of work like the iwf members who I spoke to, who had already broken down barriers, and so it's like this is is now our time. These are additional barriers that women need to break down, and so we have an opportunity and sort of a responsibility, I think, to do that.

Amy: 23:33

Well, it just highlights how layered the fight for equity really is. At the end of the day, you break one door down, there's always another one, because there's just so many things that need to be addressed, indeed. So I'd like to ask you about the other side. So we talked about top down, but we also talked a little bit about stigma and how women don't want to bring it up to HR or their direct superiors. So if you are an employee who needs support in the workplace around menopause, or just someone who believes it's important to advocate for change regarding this issue, how would you start that conversation with your employer or your superior?

Trish: 24:11

Yeah, that's a great question, and we have a couple of examples of that in the report. There's a woman who works in the federal government and she literally almost single-handedly, started an entire program, and that's because she was her own advocate, but then she advocated with her supervisor and then brought a proposal forward, and now she has a my Menopause at Work virtual group with the federal government on one of its platforms. I think she just sent out a newsletter recently, and so I would say, do not underestimate the power of one person advocating and being supportive and saying, hey, we should do this. So if someone on a senior leadership team is saying to the human resources leader, we should look at this, look at this report, come back with some recommendation, just something as simple as that, like, let's just open the door to considering what we might do as an employer. So I think anyone, regardless of where they are, can do something around this to just be more supportive towards women. I think, though, it is still highly stigmatized and taboo. We're getting better. Women are talking about it more. This is helping, for sure, but it's still very, very difficult.

Trish: 25:38

It took me probably years two years to finally tell my supervisor who was the CEO of a large company that I couldn't get to the office, like everybody else is sort of there and ready to go at 8am. I couldn't do it. I really could not do it, not physically, not mentally, and so I had to ask him to accommodate me, to get, you know, just come in a bit later and just stay a bit later. But honestly it was. It was so, um, embarrassing and I he was so uncomfortable. He just wanted the meeting over with and to get me out of his office as quickly as possible, like, yes, trish, do whatever you need to do. Goodbye. So I, I, I feel like I know, I, you know I started this foundation, but it was. It's very difficult, very difficult to be vulnerable and it's very difficult to think that that conversation could impact your career trajectory, which it at right now it could. So, so I want to just acknowledge that it's difficult.

Amy: 26:42

It's. I mean, I think it would be very difficult, and it highlights the layers of ageism which you mentioned earlier. It's just another thing that women are judged for when they are perceived to be of a certain age, and it makes it just that much more difficult. Yes, which is really unfortunate.

Trish: 27:01

Yes, but if I may, I would say women tend to take on a lot. They walk around with a lot of burden on their shoulders and you know it's time to shed some of that. Share the burden, like, take it off your shoulders. There's no reason at all that a woman should feel debilitated from symptoms that are unmanaged. There's, it's just not on. It is not on. You know, like you've got to advocate yourself, you've got to push forward and you've got to get to a point of feeling better so that you can do all the things that you want to do.

Amy: 27:33

Well, I think you answered my next question, but I'm going to ask it anyway and you're going to have to come up with a different answer. So my question is what advice then do?

Trish: 27:46

I think step one is you are not alone. I feel like we really have to see the kind of sisterhood in this that it is happening. All over the world Women are being stigmatized. It's a taboo subject Globally millions, billions of women going through this. It's kind of hard to even comprehend and yet each woman feels alone in this journey. It's kind of hard to even comprehend and yet each woman feels alone in this journey. So I think that advocacy, really that self-advocacy, being armed with information and knowledge and I know, believe me, I know you're tired, you can't think, you can't absorb anything but working to find we've got lots of evidence-based videos and information. But you have to go armed to your health professional and you have to already have a lot of knowledge. You have to be armed and with ideas to come forward, whether it's in your workplace or to help other women. So you know that's really going to help a lot is some of that knowledge.

Amy: 28:45

Well, that's great advice. Imagine what we could all do if all the women across the globe stood up at the same time and advocated. We could probably solve that problem in an hour then right.

Trish: 28:54

Yes, let's solve it in an hour. I like that.

Amy: 28:56

I like that new target the CEO of the Arthritis Society of Canada and I feel like arthritis is something that can also be misunderstood and that there is also a lack of education. So what is the biggest misconception people have around arthritis?

Trish: 29:18

That it's an older person's disease, that it's trivial, that it's inevitable, that it's wear and tear, and none of these things are true. That it's wear and tear, and none of these things are true. Most people who have arthritis are under the age of 65. Osteoarthritis that's the most prominent type of arthritis. A third of those folks are diagnosed before the age of 45. And you certainly see increased risk of arthritis in athletes, people who have had injuries. I know a couple of basketball players who have arthritis, young women. They're in their 20s. So I think this idea that it's an older person's disease really masks its prevalence and severity, and so that's one of the I think the biggest hurdles that we have is trying to help educate on how complex the disease is, how costly it is and how prevalent it is.

Amy: 30:16

That resonates a lot with me. I mean, first we all sort of had an aunt who had arthritis and she was always very old and things like that. Or also I find this in my daily life people self-diagnose. If something hurts, they say, oh, it's just arthritis, and then they just don't even do anything about it. So what's the plan to educate people that may not know they're at risk? Or younger people that don't know that it could be part of if they're an athlete or you know, could be part of something they need to watch out for that kind of thing.

Trish: 30:44

That's a great question. So we're working hard to try and increase awareness in many, many different ways in terms of advocacy and the work that we're doing with government and the work that we're doing with pharma or other corporations, and just working to increase all of that awareness. One of the things I think that strikes me is how costly the disease is. So one of the things again, misconceptions people will say they have a bad knee, they're getting a knee replacement. Well, 99% of knee replacements are due to arthritis. So, and also most of the hip replacements, so most joint replacements are due to arthritis and yet we don't attribute all of that cost to arthritis. That that is the precursor to all of this cost in the healthcare system, for example. And then there are the autoimmune, autoinflammatory types of arthritis, like gout and other things.

Trish: 31:38

Rheumatoid arthritis, where the person has an autoimmune disease, is often on very strong medication to help reduce the progression of the disease, the destruction of their joints strong medication to help reduce the progression of the disease, the destruction of their joints. And those medications are hard to access. They are very, very costly and I think this is another area that people really are unaware of the impact of that. I was recently at a kid's day so kids with arthritis and one of the kids said his teacher did not believe him. Oh, that's horrible, that's so sad. Which is really horrible. Yes, because they think children cannot have arthritis. In fact, he has a little boy with an autoimmune disease. I mean it's very serious, but because the disease is invisible for the most part, I think it makes it really difficult to see that disability in the other person. Invisible for the most part. I think it makes it really difficult to see that disability in the other person.

Amy: 32:33

That's a good point. And when we talked earlier about when we go to the healthcare professionals and we're dismissed with menopause, is that a thing that happens with arthritis? Is there, this hurts, or I'm feeling like this and they dismiss it because they miss the autoimmune side, or something like that.

Trish: 32:49

Yeah, absolutely.

Trish: 32:50

Some of the types of arthritis have eight to 10 year diagnostic wait time, in the sense that it takes a long time to diagnose because the person has a sore back and they go and it's like well, try massage, try this, and so on, and on and on it goes and eight years later they're diagnosed with ankylosing spondylitis, which is a type of arthritis that affects the spine.

Trish: 33:13

So you've got these long periods of time that people are in a lot of pain, that, and they don't even have a diagnosis. So I feel like that is another, you know another area where we don't have that knowledge, but also we don't have any treatment. We don't have a treatment that slows down the progression of osteoarthritis. It's one of the things I'm working on a national plan for arthritis for the country, with a large ecosystem of 21 organizations that are connected to arthritis, and we're trying to say, hey, what are the most pressing areas that we need to focus on collectively, so that we're all singing from the same handbook, we're all aligned on what the key priority areas are and then we can work on them together, which I think will be much more powerful.

Amy: 33:59

That sounds like a very powerful collective that you've built, so hopefully you can push it forward and help all the people suffering from this disease.

Trish: 34:09

Indeed, and there are many suffering from this disease. Indeed, and there are many suffering from this disease.

Amy: 34:13

So both of the organizations that you work with are the Menopause Society. The Menopause Foundation is volunteer and the Arthritis Society is largely supported by its volunteers, which then also means that both of these organizations require funding, and you're probably talking to people about fundraising and donations and the nonprofit side. So I'd like to talk a little bit about fundraising, because that's a big part of what you do and a lot of people work in the nonprofit sector and it's a tough part of the job. So how do you approach fundraising?

Trish: 34:44

Yeah, I agree with you, they're like unicorns, people who are good at fundraising. It is such a difficult role and we're in Canada. We are seeing fewer people donate, so it's a smaller group of people that are making contributions and thinking about how do you help people see the need, connect to a cause and know there's like components of the disease that we really try and highlight and connect with donors on in order to see the impact. But you're absolutely right, we run on foundation dollars. Whenever we get government money, it tends to be very focused and allocated. So we really thank you for talking about that and I know the IWF members are really generous, already seeing some of the fundraising that they already do, and so it's thinking about that, just sort of almost having that philosophy of giving and how do we share that responsibility and opportunity with others.

Amy: 36:09

And I assume on the menopause foundation side it's also donation-based and non-profit, Is that correct?

Trish: 36:16

Yes, and we get sponsorships from corporations. So looking for that connection as well with corporations and how we might help them on the work side.

Amy: 36:27

So you started the menopause foundation from the ground up. What advice would you give anyone considering starting a movement or a foundation or a charitable organization for a cause that is underfunded or underrepresented?

Trish: 36:40

I think my advice would be bring good people around you and make sure that you are crystal clear on what you want to do and only pick a few things to try and accomplish. As Janet always tells me, I'm like the idea person. I have like 500 ideas.

Trish: 37:00

I didn't get in time, but all those ideas. So it's really trying to tone it down to key priorities and stay really focused and just do a good job of delivering on the one or two things that you think you can manage. That's probably true even within our working world, right? We tend to really take on a lot and it's really being clear about your objective. What is my objective?

Amy: 37:23

And then, proceeding from there, yes, I agree, I was thinking I could use that just for my life in general. That's very good advice me too so can you tell us with both organizations, um, how can people get involved out? I mean obviously the fundraising, the donation side, but from a volunteer standpoint from both the menopause foundation and the Arthritis Society, if people are interested, we'll put all the links and everything like that. But what are the opportunities for people to get involved?

Trish: 37:58

Yeah, we have so many great volunteer roles in both organizations, so definitely they can use the info link on either site. So menopausefoundationcanadaca arthritisca you can learn more about volunteer opportunities and ways to give, ways to support. I am really passionate about both these topics and would love to see more people involved, so please give us a call.

Amy: 38:26

Yes, everyone should get involved. I feel like you've picked two issues that are underfunded and undereducated, and so good for you for taking on both of those for everybody. I think everybody yeah, you're an underdog, and I think people don't know that. You've probably helped them along the way, so thank you for doing all of that.

Trish: 38:49

Oh, you're welcome.

Amy: 38:51

And thank you for taking the time today. It was great to talk to you and I loved hearing all about both organizations and congratulations on everything that you're doing. And what's next. I know you have other reports on the horizon for the Menopause Foundation. Is that true?

Trish: 39:05

Yeah, we're issuing a mini report on the nursing focus groups that we did, so that will be coming out this week so they can check that out. And then we're also working on an advocacy campaign for the Menopause Foundation of Canada and a petition. So that will be a great way to get involved relatively easily by just signing up for that. Signing up for that and for arthritis, we're working on our national plan action plan for arthritis for the country and there'll be opportunities there as well for both donating but also volunteering.

Amy: 39:39

Great. Thank you so much, Trish. It was great to see you and great to talk with you.

Trish: 39:43

Thanks, Amy.

Amy: 39:45

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