What do you do when you are a senior who is struggling with the day-to-day activities at home but no family member is available to help?
What do you do when your elderly parents insist on living in their home, but it is no longer safe for them to live alone?
What do you do when you are worn out by providing care to a disabled family member and you need some time to take care of yourself?
The answer to all of these is: you get help – you hire a professional caregiver. Caregivers come in a variety of backgrounds, skills sets and credentials. Most caregivers are CNAs (Certified Nursing Assistants) or sitters who work for homecare agencies or in long-term care facilities (nursing homes). Some homecare agencies are approved to bill insurance providers, like Medicare, for all or a portion of the expense. Some agencies depend on people paying the total caregiving cost out-of-pocket (these agencies often charge a lower hourly rate than those that bill insurers).
Regardless of a caregiver’s employer, training, or background, there are certain characteristics that a caregiver must possess to do this job well. Most hired caregivers do not administer injections or other medical treatments; they are not permitted to do so unless they are LPNs or RNs, which is usually considered nursing care rather than caregiving. Their professional credentials, therefore, do not play as significant a part in their effectiveness as their temperament.
One homecare agency in Douglasville, Angels Touch LLC Home Assistance Services, promotes compassion as the primary quality a caregiver must demonstrate in order to work with their clients. The agency’s owner, Mrs. Bakare, listed the top ten qualities that she demands in an employee, and that she assures all Angels Touch clients will benefit from with her caregivers. These top ten are listed here in the order of their importance.
1. Compassion
Compassion is empathy in action. It is more than just feeling for someone and sympathizing with their situation; it is a willingness to extend yourself to that person in order to help bring about a positive change. Sometimes that means simply holding someone’s hand while she cries and talks. Sometimes it means sacrificing your own needs in order to serve someone else’s needs.
2. Integrity
Caregiving is a position of trust. People who hire caregivers are opening their homes and habits and lives to people who are usually unknown to them. Therefore, a caregiver must demonstrate integrity toward her clients – respecting their feelings, their privacy, their needs and their property. There is no acceptable compromise of this element; it is absolutely essential for caregivers to have integrity. This is the foundation of professionalism.
3. Honesty
Honesty is integrity’s companion, both are related to trust. If a caregiver is dishonest with a client in any way, then she has damaged a relationship of trust. This can be very painful to someone who is in need of help to manage the day-to-day activities of life. They have enough to manage already. If they have to be constantly on guard because they are not able to trust their caregivers, then this can have a lasting and damaging affect on the people who need assistance.
4. Reliability
Help is effective only when it is given at the time that it is needed. People who hire caregivers must be able to depend on that care in order to maintain life-sustaining schedules and routines. Therefore, caregivers must be entirely reliable – showing up for work when scheduled, completing assigned tasks, maintaining necessary paperwork, etc. When a caregiver is unreliable, it is disruptive and sometimes dangerous.
5. Patience
There are many elements that may be frustrating to people requiring care: chronic pain, medication affects, mobility challenges, communication problems, loneliness, memory loss, depression and many others. It is necessary for caregivers to be patient with people who are receiving care. A good caregiver is able to put her own feelings and ego aside and focus on the welfare of her client, being as patient as possible with that person’s moods and behavior. This does not mean that caregivers should stand for abuse; that is never advised. But caregivers can remind themselves that their clients are struggling with many things and it is difficult for them sometimes to control their feelings and their frustration.
6. Discretion
It is a caregiver’s duty to respect and protect the privacy of his clients. Caregivers must refrain from giving unsolicited or personal advice, or commenting on issues that are not within the limits of the professional services. Also, caregivers must not reveal information about their clients of a personal nature to anyone who is not approved by the clients to receive that information. The exception to this would be a situation that could endanger the client. The caregiver would then notify someone in authority that was relevant to the protection and care of the client. Caregivers should never gossip to or about the client.
7. Dedication
It is imperative that a caregiver be dedicated to the people for whom she provides care. This dedication means a sense of diligence in the work as well as the willingness, when necessary, to do more than what is assigned. It is a commitment to do everything possible to ensure the client’s wellbeing, safety and comfort. This may mean spending extra time to get the pillows just right behind his back; or preparing a meal that the client will enjoy and that also fulfills his nutritional needs; or willingly assisting him to the bathroom, no matter how many times he has to go. It means giving the kind of care that anyone would want to receive, even if it requires extra thought, extra energy, extra effort.
8. Loyalty
A true professional demonstrates loyalty to both her employer and to her clients. If the caregiver does not invest something of herself into these relationships, then she will not have a sense of loyalty. But loyalty is a quality that is universally desired and admired. The caregiver’s clients and employers alike will have a greater sense of loyalty and appreciation for the caregiver if she demonstrates the same towards them. This makes a stronger and more fruitful relationship. how to find a caregiver