In the media
Australian Financial Review
Wednesday 3 December 2025
"What started as a six-month break for this executive morphed into a multigenerational caregiving squeeze that upended her life."
Caring for two generations cost Han her corporate career
Nina Hendy's feature in the AFR puts a spotlight on Han Bailey's story - and the reality facing 1.5 million Australians caught in the caregiving squeeze.
What started as a six-month career break morphed into a multigenerational caregiving crisis that derailed Han's thriving corporate career. Between packing lunchboxes and acting as her father's hospital advocate, she was navigating the "Midlife Collision" that's costing Australian families an estimated $33,600 per year, plus decades of lost career momentum and retirement security.
The article features Melissa Reader, Vera's CEO and Founder, on why this matters:
"For midlifers, especially women, the sandwich generation has become a pressure cooker. This erosion of wealth and work opportunity has long-term impacts on households, but also on national productivity, costing Australia an estimated $11.5 billion annually in lost output."
Why we built Vera
Han's story is exactly why Vera exists. Not to add another task to an impossible day, but to provide a framework when everything's falling apart.
The infrastructure for this stage of life doesn't exist. So we built it.
Sydney Morning Herald
Sunday, 23 November 2024
"My husband didn't plan the last years of his life. I don't want that for anyone else"
When families don't plan ahead, the people left behind face impossible decisions at impossible moments. This Sydney Morning Herald feature explores why so many Australians avoid conversations about ageing, care preferences, and what matters most - and the real cost of that silence.
Melissa Reader, CEO and Founder of Vera examines how the absence of planning impacts every stage of ageing: where someone lives, the care they want to receive (and the interventions they wouldn't want), who makes decisions when they can't, how families navigate medical choices, and whether the life someone built reflects the life they actually wanted in their final years.
Melissa discusses how technology can bridge the gap between knowing you should plan and actually doing it. The piece highlights why families need systematic guidance through each stage of the ageing journey - not just crisis intervention when things fall apart. It explores how the sandwich generation is caught between caring responsibilities and their own lives, often making critical decisions without the conversations that should have happened years earlier.
This is a stage of life we will all face, and planning isn't morbid. It's the most loving thing you can do for the people who will have to make decisions on your behalf.
One of the most-read SMH articles that week - clearly, this conversation struck a nerve.
Today Extra, Channel 9
July 2025
Melissa Reader discusses the Sandwich Generation and the CARE Index 2025
Melissa Reader joined Today Extra hosts David Campbell and Sylvia Jeffreys on Channel 9's Today Extra to discuss the reality facing midlife Australians: the sandwich generation caught between caring for ageing parents while juggling their own families and careers. David noted he has so many friends managing this right now - an observation that clearly resonated with viewers nationwide.
The conversation centred on findings from the CARE Index 2025, revealing a crisis hiding in plain sight. 83% of Australians are concerned about the strain caregiving will place on their relationships—and these fears are well-founded. 42% of adult siblings report permanent damage to their relationships due to care-related decisions, while 40% of adult children say serious conflict arose during a parent's final stage of life.
"When families fight, care suffers," Melissa explained. "We're seeing fractured families, legal chaos, and emotional trauma at precisely the moment people most need to come together."
The strain is particularly acute for those caring for in-laws (93% worried) versus their own parents (89%). Meanwhile, legal unpreparedness compounds the crisis: only 40% of Australians have a valid will, and 87% have not appointed a financial enduring power of attorney.
The segment highlighted why systematic support for the sandwich generation isn't just nice to have - it's essential infrastructure for families navigating one of life's most challenging transitions.
Watch the full interview
Download the CARE Index 2025
SBS News
October 2025
How AI can help families navigate the complex journey of caring for ageing parents - without making the decisions
In this SBS Insight segment, Yaniv Bernstein, Co-founder and CTO of Vera (then known as Violet), explored a fundamentally different approach to AI in the caregiving journey - one built on a simple but powerful insight: people don't trust AI for critical decisions about their parents. And they shouldn't.
"People will trust AI to remember their story, to understand their context, to track what matters," Yaniv explained. "But they won't - and shouldn't - trust it to make life-and-death decisions. We built our entire platform around this reality."
Vera's approach is unique in the aged care technology space. The AI interprets and builds context over time, never advising. Guidance and action come through human-curated content and expert support. This is how Vera delivers trusted guidance that scales.
How it works in practice:
Every recommendation is based on in-depth domain expertise. No AI hallucinations giving dangerous medical or legal advice. The AI handles the complexity of understanding each family's unique situation across a 5+ year journey, while human expertise ensures quality and safety at every decision point.
"Each interaction deepens Vera's understanding of a family," Yaniv noted. "We're building context over years, remembering what's been navigated and anticipating what's next. More context means better guidance. And better guidance means families actually get the support they need when they need it most."
The segment highlighted why this approach matters: it's the difference between technology that replaces human judgment and technology that enhances it. For families navigating one of life's most complex transitions, that distinction isn't academic - it's everything.
Note: This segment was filmed when the company was known as Violet. We have since rebranded to Vera.
The Australian
October 2025
"Warning: the Sandwich Generation is a crisis hiding in plain sight"
$100 billion. That's what Australia would pay if family carers stopped caring tomorrow.
In this feature by Penny Timms, The Australian examines the reality facing the Sandwich Generation through the story of Caroline Page, single parent of two boys, full-time communications specialist, and daughter of a father with advanced dementia. When Caroline's father was diagnosed, there was no transition period. "It was just like a slap in the face," she recalls. Finding support services became almost as demanding as another full-time job.
By 2030, over 2.2 million Australians will be caring for an ageing loved one while raising children and maintaining careers. Yet this invisible workforce (two-thirds of whom are women) receives almost no recognition, support, or workplace flexibility.
Melissa Reader, CEO of The Violet Initiative (now Vera), explains the core problem: "Families care deeply but plan poorly. They're not prepared for this chapter of life, and we're seeing almost 90% of carers feeling overwhelmed and 90% worrying about their own wellbeing."
The article highlights findings from the CARE Index 2025, showing Australians scored just 23.1 out of 100 on preparedness for family caregiving. Half of caregivers self-report high levels of anxiety, depression, and severe psychological distress. What would be the cost of replacement care if family carers stopped today? Over $100 billion, in today's dollars.
The solution isn't just better services. It's about planning earlier, having difficult conversations sooner, and recognising that while we prepare extensively for pregnancy, marriage, and retirement, we barely plan for life's final chapters. As Reader notes: "There are tools and frameworks available to help families lean into this earlier and more gently, before it becomes a medical conversation where your choices are fewer and your distress is a lot higher."
The Sandwich Generation isn't just stretched thin. They're breaking. And we need to do better.
Read the full article
Download the CARE Index 2025
Channel 9 News
September 2025
"The Sandwich Generation: Australia's looming caregiving crisis"
Over 2 million Australians will become unpaid carers in the next five years. Channel 9 News featured Vera (then Violet) in a segment examining what experts call a demographic tidal wave - one that threatens to overwhelm our workforce, deepen the mental health crisis, and erode productivity as an army of carers larger than Adelaide and Perth combined struggles with impossible demands.
This is the reality of the Sandwich Generation: supporting ageing parents while raising children and juggling careers, often without support or recognition.
The segment featured former NSW Minister Victor Dominello and his family, who shared their story with remarkable honesty and generosity. Victor's sister Catherine, made the difficult decision to step back from her teaching career to fully support their mother Josie's care needs following her dementia diagnosis—a choice thousands of Australian families face every year.
Melissa Reader discussed findings from the Violet CARE Index, revealing the scale of the challenge:
- 73% of sandwich generation families work full-time while caring for children and ageing parents
- 74% are concerned about impacts on career advancement
- 53% are forced to choose between caregiving and career opportunities
- 82% report significant work-life balance impacts
"Families care deeply but plan poorly," Melissa explained. "We need help to bring these conversations out of hospital corridors and back to kitchen tables before it's too late."
The segment highlighted that this isn't just about individual families struggling in isolation. This is a systemic threat to Australia's economic resilience and social fabric—one that demands urgent action and better infrastructure to support those caught in the squeeze.
Deep appreciation to Victor Dominello and his family, particularly Catherine and Josie, for the courage in sharing their lived experience. That kind of openness makes a real difference for the thousands of families navigating similar challenges but feeling invisible and alone.
Watch the full segment
Download the CARE Index 2025
