ABOUT THE FOUNDER & WHAT MAKES CARING FORWARD DIFFERENT
Why Caring Forward Exists
Caring Forward was founded by Dr. Jessica Thomas, an educator and caregiver with more than a decade of SPED teaching experience and over ten years of hands-on caregiving supporting adults with disabilities in homes, classrooms, and community settings.
Her background includes:
- Ten years of SPED teaching
- A doctorate in leadership
- Over a decade of direct caregiving experience in sponsored residential and home-based supports
Caring Forward was created out of lived experience — seeing firsthand how often systems miss what actually keeps people stable, safe, and successful.
Over time, it became clear that many service models focus on paperwork over people, outcomes over process, and performance over understanding. Caregivers are often doing the work that prevents crisis, yet that work goes unseen. Progress is frequently treated as a reason to reduce support instead of evidence that support is working.
Caring Forward exists to operate differently.
We believe:
- Stability is not accidental — it is built through consistent, skilled support
- Maintenance is active work, not the absence of need
- Skills take time, repetition, and the right environment to develop and retain
- Honest communication protects individuals, caregivers, and services
Our approach centers real life. We pay attention to patterns, routines, and the behind-the-scenes supports that make daily success possible. We value continuity over constant reinvention and clarity over excessive documentation.
What Makes Caring Forward Different
Caring Forward is built on systems that reflect how people actually live.
We:
- Recognize and name invisible caregiving labor
- Support growth without allowing progress to threaten services
- Reduce unnecessary busywork and focus documentation on what matters
- Translate regulations into clear, usable expectations
- Build trust through consistency, transparency, and shared accountability
Our goal is not perfection.
Our goal is understanding, risk prevention, compliance, stability, and support that lasts.