Suzanne Mintz is a family caregiver for her husband, Steven, who was diagnosed with Multiple Sclerosis in 1974. Her longtime personal involvement with caregiving led her to the conclusion that chronic illness and disability affects the person who provides care as well as the one that requires it. In addition its impact goes beyond individual families and has become a national healthcare and social policy issue. She realized that family caregivers are part of a "silent and neglected workforce" that does not receive the recognition, training, support, assistance, or public policy attention it deserves. As a consequence she co-founded the National Family Caregivers Association (NFCA) in 1993. Today, she spearheads the organization's efforts to meet the unmet needs of family caregivers.
Mintz spent over 25 years in the field of interior architecture and marketing prior to becoming NFCA's first paid chief executive in 1997. She worked at her "day job" and continued to build NFCA on borrowed time and during the evenings and on weekends before taking over the reins fulltime.
One of the first to champion the now widely held belief that caregiving is a life span issue that should be treated as such rather than dealt with in silos of age, relationship and diagnoses, Mintz soon became recognized as a far-sighted and responsible spokesperson for family caregivers, as attested to by her appearances before Congress, her participation in the crafting of national legislation, and often sited remarks in major media outlets such as the New York Times, Wall Street Journal, and Chicago Tribune. Many of her efforts are focused on empowering other caregivers to speak up on behalf of their loved ones and themselves. Her efforts have inspired others to become advocates and activists on caregiving issues.
Mintz is the author of Love, Honor, & Value — A Family Caregiver Speaks Out About the Choices and Challenges of Caregiving, (Capital Books 2002) and has been writing a quarterly column, Caregiver Connection, for Paraplegic News since 1996. She is often called upon to contribute to other publications. Many of her writings have been reprinted by other organizations across the country.
Mintz currently serves on a number of national advisory committees and boards related to family caregiving. She is a founding advisor of CAPS, Consumers Advocating for Patient Safety and a member of the board of the National Patient Safety Foundation. She helped develop the section on People with Disabilities for Health People 2010, the guiding document of the Centers for Disease Control. Policy makers and legislators frequently request her input to ensure that the family caregiver perspective is included in new programs and initiatives. She is the 2004 recipient of the Lifetime Achievement Award from the Eli Lilly Welcome Back initiative.
Mintz received her BA in English from Queens College, City University of New York and her MS in Human Ecology from the University of Maryland. She is also a graduate of the 1996 class of Leadership Washington.