The challenges of caregiving

[vtlady]

Here's our situation: our son who is 52 lives in NJ, we live in VT. He is living with his wife & two college aged children and still working fulltime from home. He continues to slowly get worse, but is still able to work. He can still feed himself, but that is getting harder. We finance having caregivers come to his house 7 days a week in the early morning to help him get up, wash, etc. Another caregiver came 2 days a week mid-day to help with lunch, etc. After a period of several months with a full complement of caregivers - 2 of the 3 quit.

We travel back and forth from VT whenever we are needed - when the remaining caregiver went on vacation; when our grandson went on a trip; or just to lend an extra hand. I'm finding that standard home health care agencies are woefully understaffed and not equipped to handle folks who only need a few hours a day of care. I have lists and list of agencies that I have called. We are now thinking out of the box - posting on Facebook; asking friends to also post on forums.

Are there any organizations in NJ that deal with this issue? We have been in contact with the ALS Organization in Philadelphia - the one that is supposed to cover NJ, too. Their expertise is clearly PA and not NJ. If anyone out there has an suggestions or ideas about resources for finding home health care - please share. Any bit of information is welcome.

 

[Nikki J]

Have you connected with the Joan Dancy Foundation? I have an Nj friend who has worked with them and I believe they were the place that helped find caregivers.

some people have had luck with looking at colleges for students nursing and otherwise

 

[vtlady]

Thanks for the information. Will try Joan Dancy and the nursing student idea is great.

 

[Mary2]

I have one caretaker from agency and another we hired privately, because the agencies were short staffed. I may be blocked from giving the link but it is Care.Com. We advertised on this web site, purchased comp insurance through it and pay for them to do the payroll. You can chose one or all of their services. The person we hired is excellent. The payroll service is competent. I really did not look into comp insurance at all. I have no idea if the insurance I purchased is decent or not. Oh and I did back ground checks through the service.

 

[vtlady]

Thanks for the reply. I've used care.com and it was a disaster - aides said they wanted the job and then the day before would call and say that weren't interested. I've posted a job on carelinx.com - similiar to care.com also.

Got in touch with Joan Dancy FDN and talked to a local NJ person - quite helpful. Couldn't find an aide, but in the future I believe that they may be of help. Thanks for the tip. Also am calling nursing schools in the area. If you have any other ideas, keep them coming. Thanks.