If you work in care advocacy, life care planning, or complex care coordination, none of this will surprise you.
You already know the pattern.
Someone has documents…but in binders, portals, and email attachments.
Someone has a Power of Attorney…but not the information to act confidently.
Someone has people who care…but differing opinions on what to do.
Still, moments matter. And the recent launch of Childfree Trust is one worth paying attention to, not because it introduces a new fear, but because it names a reality the nursing community has been quietly working around for years.
The Problem We’ve All Been Solving, Just From Different Angles
Across the advocate and life care planning world, we see the same truth:
Care breaks down not because no one cares, but because no one has the full picture.
For childfree adults, that gap can feel especially stark. There may be friends, extended family, neighbors, or professionals involved, but without a clear structure, everyone is forced to improvise when it matters most.
That’s what Childfree Trust is addressing head-on: the fiduciary void, who will legally and responsibly step in when someone can’t.
Those of us working in advocacy recognize how significant that is.
But we also know something else.
What Advocates Know: Authority Is Only Half the Job
Professionals like Haven Healthcare Advocates and nurse advocates like Kristy Shell, RN, who step into POA, care coordination, and crisis support, understand the invisible labor behind decision-making.
Being a POA or advocate means:
- Interpreting medical complexity under pressure
- Navigating fragmented health systems
- Aligning clinicians, facilities, payers, and families
- Carrying emotional and ethical responsibility long after the paperwork is signed
The hardest part is rarely making the decision.
It’s ensuring everyone is working from the same understanding.
The Life Care Planning Lens: Continuity Is the Care Plan
Life care planners and client-centered advocate teams, including those at Dillman and Owen, have long emphasized something the broader system often misses:
A care plan isn’t a document. It’s a living narrative.
Values evolve. Health changes. Context matters.
And yet, legal, financial, and medical information are still treated as separate worlds, siloed, static, and rarely revisited together.
This is why advocates so often become the bridge:
- Reconstructing history
- Translating intent
- Holding continuity when systems can’t
It’s also why the burden on advocates and fiduciaries keeps growing.
Why This Moment Matters
The launch of Childfree Trust is not happening in isolation.
It’s part of a broader shift, one this community has been building from the ground up:
- Professionalizing roles that were once informal and unsupported
- Acknowledging that “just list someone” is no longer sufficient
- Recognizing that people deserve preparedness, not just paperwork
At the same time, it raises an important question for all of us:
What infrastructure do we give the people who step in?
Where Shared Information Changes Everything
At Primary Record, our work sits beneath these movements, supporting advocates, fiduciaries, and care planners with the one thing they consistently ask for:
A single place where legal, financial, and health information come together.
Not to replace human judgment, but to support it.
When information is centralized:
- POAs act with confidence, not guesswork
- Advocates spend less time chasing records and more time guiding care
- Decisions reflect history, values, and documented intent
- No one has to reconstruct a life in the middle of a crisis
This is what continuity looks like in practice.
An Invitation to the Community
If you’re an advocate, life care planner, fiduciary, or care professional reading this, you already know these pain points. You’ve lived them. You’ve carried them for others.
This article isn’t meant to explain why the problem exists.
It’s meant to acknowledge:
- The work you’re already doing
- The emotional and professional weight you carry
- And the progress that happens when we stop pretending people should do this alone
The launch of Childfree Trust is one signal that the system is catching up to what this community has long understood. The next step, and the shared opportunity, is ensuring that when someone steps in, they are never doing so in the dark.
We invite others in this space to share their perspective, add nuance, and expand this conversation, so that planning for the future no longer depends on luck, proximity, or unpaid labor.
Because continuity is not a luxury, it’s care.
And no one should have to do it alone.
