Holding It All Together: A Caregiver Support Panel and Resource Forum
Tuesday, June 9, 2026 · 2:00–4:00 p.m.
Beaverton City Library, Rooms A & B
12375 SW 5th Street, Beaverton, OR 97005
Caring for an older adult can bring both meaning and challenge. Family caregivers often navigate complex care systems, emotional changes, and shifting needs – often without a clear place to turn.
Join us for a community event supported by Washington County designed to support family caregivers of older adults through education, connection, and resources. The event will include a panel of professionals with expertise in home care, grief and loss, and caregiver wellbeing, offering practical guidance and insight into the caregiving experience.
Attendees will also have the opportunity to connect with local organizations offering caregiving and aging-related resources.
Topics include:
- Navigating care options and planning ahead
- Understanding grief and emotional changes in aging
- Tools for caregiver stress and sustainability
- Community resources and support services
All caregivers and individuals supporting older adults are welcome.
No cost to attend. Registration requested, but not required.
PANELISTS
Missy Fry, LCSW
Licensed Clinical Social Worker and Director of Training and Clinical Services, William Temple House
Missy Fry, LCSW (she/her), is a Licensed Clinical Social Worker and Director of Training and Clinical Services at William Temple House, a Portland nonprofit providing counseling and basic needs support to individuals and families in the greater Portland area. She holds a Master of Social Work and a Graduate Certificate in Gerontology from Portland State University. Missy works with adults across the lifespan, with particular expertise supporting older adults and caregivers navigating grief, loss, illness, and complex life transitions. Her work focuses on helping people make sense of emotional and relational changes in later life, including caregiver stress, shifting family dynamics, and the many forms of grief that can accompany aging.
Missy’s focus on this panel is on the emotional drivers that can make caregiving harder to sustain, such as ongoing and anticipatory grief (for both the caregiver and older adult), loss of independence, how grief can show up behaviorally, emotional exhaustion, and how this all connects to maintaining care at home.
Matt Preston
Healthcare operations and business development leader
Matt Preston is a healthcare operations and business development leader with more than 30 years of experience driving growth, operational excellence, and quality outcomes across post-acute and senior care. His career spans executive leadership roles in skilled nursing, assisted living, memory care, independent living, home care, and provider services — with a consistent focus on building high-performing teams and improving patient and resident outcomes.
Matt’s focus on this panel is on proactive planning in home care to help individuals remain at home longer and avoid crises, including recognizing early warning signs that more support is needed, strategies to gradually increase support, the realistic role of in-home services, common crisis points that can lead to institutionalization, and how to plan before situations become urgent.
Douglass Ruth, LCSW
Clinical Director, Jewish Family & Child Service (JFCS)
Douglass Ruth, LCSW (he/him), is the Clinical Director at Jewish Family & Child Service (JFCS) in Portland, where he oversees clinical programming and leads the agency’s work supporting older adults, families, and individuals navigating mental health, life transitions, and complex care needs. He also serves as Workforce Development Coordinator at the Oregon Center of Excellence for Behavioral Health in Aging (OCEBHA), housed within Portland State University’s Institute on Aging, where his work focuses on building behavioral health capacity across Oregon’s aging services workforce. Doug holds a Master of Social Work from the Smith College School of Social Work and has spent more than a decade working in community-based clinical settings, with particular focus on the intersection of behavioral health and aging.
Douglass’ focus on this panel is on the caregiver’s own behavioral health, specifically how role strain and shifts in identity show up, how to recognize when something has moved past ordinary stress, and some simple, practical screening and brief intervention approaches caregivers can use on themselves.
No cost to attend. Registration requested but not required.
Presented by
This event made possible with support from Disability, Aging and Veteran Services and the Older Americans Act