Helping Caregivers Rebuild Careers

For years, Maria Ghafoor’s days revolved around caring for her son, Momin. After he suffered a stroke at birth, she stepped away from her career as a medical assistant to become his full-time caregiver, unsure what would come next.

Zenda Daniels moved from New York to a safe house in Virginia with her newborn daughter, Zemira-Grace. She was searching for a new beginning.

Neither woman imagined that the patience, problem-solving and communication they practiced every day as caregivers could become the foundation for a career in information technology. But that’s what they discovered when they enrolled in Marymount University’s From Caregiver to Breadwinner program, which is based on the premise that caregiving develops skills employers value but often overlook.

For Ghafoor and Daniels, the program offered something else they were seeking: a chance to rebuild.

“I was completely at my lowest at that time because I was not focusing on myself as much as I was giving it all to my family, being the caregiver,” Ghafoor said. “This was the one hope that actually brought me forward.”

Designed for caregivers: The private Catholic university in Northern Virginia launched the workforce initiative in 2024 to help unpaid family caregivers transition into careers in information technology. Through the no-cost, 12-week program, participants receive training in IT and artificial intelligence fundamentals, prepare for industry-recognized certifications, including CompTIA Tech+, and receive mentorship, career coaching and job-placement support.

Established by the university’s Center for the Innovative Workforce, the program has served more than 140 participants so far. It is funded primarily through a $766,000 U.S. Department of Labor Community Project Funding Grant, with additional support from ISACA, a professional association focused on IT governance.

Diane Murphy, director of the Center for the Innovative Workforce, said the idea for the program emerged during the COVID-19 pandemic, when many parents—particularly women—left the workforce because of caregiving responsibilities. As technology reshaped the job market and employers sought new digital skills, many women found it difficult to return to work.

“We felt this was a needy population that nobody was really paying too much attention to,” Murphy said. “But if we’ve got a tech workforce crunch, they are people who already have good skills, particularly customer service skills, which are a little low in IT help desk work.”

“If we could take their existing skills and package them with some technology training, we could get them to reinvent themselves into the tech workforce,” she added.

The program’s cohort model became one of its greatest strengths, Murphy said, allowing participants to build relationships with others who understand the challenges of balancing caregiving responsibilities with career aspirations. The average participant is 36 years old, and many had established careers before stepping away to become caregivers.

“The sense of community that we developed was phenomenal,” Murphy said. “As a caregiver, you’re really by yourself at home. The cohort is just a recognition that what you’re feeling and what you need is not just you. It’s this whole, very diverse community.”

The program has also produced positive results. Murphy said it has maintained a 90 percent completion rate, and the vast majority of participants earned at least one industry certification.

“It’s been a totally worthwhile project when you recognize that many of these people have really lost all respect for their abilities,” Murphy said. “It’s the confidence-building that was just as important as the tech training.”

Strength in community: After completing the program’s first cohort in 2025, Ghafoor earned the CompTIA Tech+ certification and is now pursuing a bachelor’s degree in cybersecurity at Marymount.

One of the program’s biggest strengths, Ghafoor said, is its flexibility. Evening classes allowed her to balance her caregiving responsibilities and education, while the in-person format gave her an opportunity to step away from home and focus on herself.

“I preferred going out because that gave me a break to focus on what I wanted to do and not just what was happening back at home,” Ghafoor said.

Beyond the technical training, she said the relationships she built with other participants helped replace feelings of self-doubt with confidence.

“We are all still supporting each other. We’re still uplifting each other,” Ghafoor said. “We’re always giving tips and tricks on how to improve ourselves, doing study groups, and that continued on up until everyone started taking their certification.”

Daniels found that same sense of belonging in the program’s third cohort; she enrolled at Marymount after moving from the Virginia safe house to transitional housing.

“It was like a breath of fresh air,” Daniels said. “My confidence was gone, I didn’t have any money and I was trying to figure things out. So this program was like a new beginning for me.”

Daniels said the program’s close-knit community—which included fellow participants, Murphy and the instructors—helped her feel supported as she balanced coursework and motherhood.

“I was a single mom with a 3-year-old when I joined the program, so I was a little overwhelmed,” Daniels said. “But I started to feel like I can do this because of the other women that I was connecting with that were sharing their stories with me.”

As her confidence grew, Daniels organized a Zoom study group for classmates preparing for their certification exams—a role she never imagined taking on before joining the program.

“It was a good handful of the women in the class, and I’m like, ‘Wait, I’m really doing this,’” Daniels said. “That’s the moment I was like, ‘Wow, this feels good,’ because there was something being pulled out of me—like leadership, more confidence and just being vulnerable with the other women.”

Purpose and possibility: The current cohort marks the program’s final round under its current grant funding, but Murphy said Marymount plans to build on the initiative by launching a broader noncredit technology-training program using many of the same support strategies. Remaining grant funding will help offset some of the start-up costs.

For Daniels, the program’s impact extends beyond her own career aspirations: She hopes her daughter grows up seeing what perseverance looks like.

“Sometimes it can feel like all odds are against you, and I want her to see that her mom never gave up and she loves her dearly,” Daniels said.

Ghafoor said the program also changed the way she viewed the skills she had developed as a caregiver, helping her recognize their value beyond the home.

“You are completely drained as a caregiver, but you cannot show that because you’re that one person everybody depends on,” Ghafoor said. “But I think a lot of the caregiving things we do come into play when you’re in IT or in a customer-facing workplace.”

For Murphy, that realization captures the broader lesson behind the program.

“It’s interesting because a lot of people feel they failed when they haven’t failed. They just had an interruption on their journey,” Murphy said. “It’s a matter of recognizing that this happens to a lot of people, and they just need a little push to get back on track.”

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