Lessons Learned from Over 30 Years of Live-in Care Experience

Lessons Learned from Over 30 Years of Live-in Care Experience

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Erin Cahill: Welcome to CareSmartz360 On Air, a Home Care, Podcast. I’m Erin, Cahill Account Executive at Caresmartz. Today we’ve got a powerhouse in the house we’re talking about none other than Jared Rodgers. The guy who eats, sleeps and breathes senior care. Well, maybe not literally, but close enough. Jared’s the Chief Executive at Lifeforce, Senior Care, a company that’s been rocking the live-in custodial care game since 1989.

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Erin Cahill: Yep, that’s over. 3 decades of helping families sleep a little better at night, knowing their loved ones are in caring hands

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Erin Cahill: When he’s not busy revolutionizing senior care. Jared’s probably thinking about new ways to make life better for his clients. He’s got that. What’s next energy. So whether you’re here for the expertise or just a good laugh stick around. We’re diving deep into what it takes to run a care service that feels like home 24/7, with a man who’s seen it all, Jared. Welcome to the show. Let’s get into it.

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Jared Rodgers: Let’s get into it.

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Jared Rodgers: Thank you, Erin.

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Erin Cahill: Yes, Jared.

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Erin Cahill: We’ll jump right into it.

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Erin Cahill: How has the demand for live-in custodial care evolved over the past 3 decades? And what trends do you foresee in the next 5 to 10 years?

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Jared Rodgers: Right.

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Jared Rodgers: You know what I think. What has evolved over the decades is

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Jared Rodgers: the biggest thing is like just the demand.

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Jared Rodgers: because you’re having a lot of people who

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Jared Rodgers: a couple reasons number one. They grew up in a generation where they didn’t have a positive experience.

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Jared Rodgers: you know, 2 decades ago, or almost 3 decades ago, with

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Jared Rodgers: the nursing homes or the skilled agencies which have

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Jared Rodgers: changed a lot. And that’s the biggest challenge that you’ll find with assisted livings, and the skilled nursing is to change that

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Jared Rodgers: persona in a lot of people’s minds that it is a safe place to put Mom. It is a safe place to put Dad. You know

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Jared Rodgers: it’s an active environment in an environment that’s filled of comfort at home.

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Jared Rodgers: But a lot of people in this generation who need living care services. They’re not all quite there.

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Jared Rodgers: The other thing, too, that has evolved is that people are in a better financial position now than they were 3 decades ago to afford

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Jared Rodgers: the ability

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Jared Rodgers: to stay at home and to live at home.

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Jared Rodgers: Every State runs their programs differently. Some States will cover

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Jared Rodgers: home care. Some States will cover living care, but not every State does that. So sometimes families are in a position where they have to pay for it privately, and you are finding that families have been better

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Jared Rodgers: in the past few decades in planning their retirement, their future. So I think that’s the other thing that has evolved as well.

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Erin Cahill: And what are some of the biggest challenges you’ve encountered with live-in care? And how has life for senior care overcome those.

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Jared Rodgers: Right. So the biggest challenge for living care that I’ve seen is just finding

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Jared Rodgers: people to do this type of work, to find those professionals that

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Jared Rodgers: are passionate and willing to go into a home. Now we only do living. So

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Jared Rodgers: you know, these are individuals that are going in the home, and they are working one on one with their client

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Jared Rodgers: throughout the day. You know they get their sleep, they get their breaks, but they’re always present.

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Jared Rodgers: So what we’re finding is a lot of the people that do this type of work, or most of them are foreigners. So you get a lot from West Africa, the Philippines, the Caribbeans.

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Jared Rodgers: and those individuals came to America 30 plus years ago.

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Jared Rodgers: not really for themselves, but for the next generation. So they’re in the homes. They’re working hard. They’re building a savings. They’re putting their kids through college. They’re putting their kids into professions like accounting and

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Jared Rodgers: and banking, and even the medical field like nursing or even coming doctors. So the biggest challenge that we were having more not too long ago was

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Jared Rodgers: finding younger

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Jared Rodgers: younger professional staff to come in to provide this service. So even though we have caregivers who’ve been with us for 20 or 30 years, their ability is to be able to

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Jared Rodgers: transfer a client are not the same that they were

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Jared Rodgers: 20 or 30 years ago. So that was one of the challenges. So one way that we’ve really come, come through. That is just

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Jared Rodgers: providing awareness in our community that this could be the next step in your medical field.

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Jared Rodgers: So maybe this isn’t where you’re going to find yourself like we have a lot of kickers with this 20 years. I don’t think that’s always going to be the case. I think you’re going to find that younger generation that might go into this field for maybe 5, 10 years until they go into that next level. It could be Lpn. We are seeing more.

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Jared Rodgers: even though

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Jared Rodgers: we are seeing more of our our caregivers, even going to the next level like becoming an Rn.

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Jared Rodgers: so that’s 1 of the challenges. The other biggest challenge that we have is just the cost.

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Jared Rodgers: the cost of of services which have been influenced by rules and regulations that have been changed again. Every State is different, so the cost of our services has increased substantially

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Jared Rodgers: so.

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Jared Rodgers: There has to be some involvement. At some point. I know every State runs their program differently. I think you’re going to see

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Jared Rodgers: that evolve

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Jared Rodgers: that you’re going to see the spending of some of these resources from the States will probably be involved with helping families

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Jared Rodgers: with keeping their loved ones at home.

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Jared Rodgers: And so I think that’s the other the other challenge. So how we have

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Jared Rodgers: really come. Come across how we’ve

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Jared Rodgers: to overcome that was adding more value to our service. So

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Jared Rodgers: we strictly do live in

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Jared Rodgers: But we have a social worker that is, on staff, and what they do is they connect family to other resources, just being more involved in providing education

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Jared Rodgers: to families, or what that process could look like for them, whether they’re moving into an assisted living.

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Jared Rodgers: just always doing what’s right for the client

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Jared Rodgers: if their goal is to be at home

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Jared Rodgers: if they’re able to get independence. What needs to be put in place bringing in physical therapy, occupational therapy

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Jared Rodgers: wound care has been a big one, too. How do you provide those resources in the home? We don’t do that, but just connecting those families. So

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Jared Rodgers: our costs have gone up. But we try to add more value to really

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Jared Rodgers: give them a reason why the cost is going up, even though a lot of it is not really by us. It’s influenced by outside sources.

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Erin Cahill: Sure. Yeah, that makes sense. And what key qualities of or training do you believe make a live-in caregiver successful? And how can agencies attract and retain top talent. In this field.

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Jared Rodgers: That was a

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Jared Rodgers: a learning curve for me. So

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Jared Rodgers: coming from a military background, I always explained that when I went into the into the navy. They didn’t just put me on a ship.

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Jared Rodgers: Hand me a mop and had me swab a deck.

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Jared Rodgers: They put me 16 weeks of of training. They taught me.

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Jared Rodgers: what are the features of a ship?

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Jared Rodgers: How do you properly

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Jared Rodgers: How do you properly

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Jared Rodgers: conduct yourself

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Jared Rodgers: on on in that type of environment.

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Jared Rodgers: What’s the proper chain of command? So they give you this whole training

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Jared Rodgers: a lot of times that I find in this industry, industry, especially in home care. Someone will come through the front door. They’ll say I’m interested in working as a home health aide.

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Jared Rodgers: They’ll fill out a piece of paper, and the next day they’re off to work

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Jared Rodgers: because they expect that school

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Jared Rodgers: that they came from and New Jersey is is very strict. So in New Jersey you have to be what’s called a certified homemaker. Home health aide. So there is a curriculum that is created by the State

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Jared Rodgers: that if you are interested in conducting that school. You have to meet those standards. You have to issue a test, and they will, and they will receive a license. Not every State has that.

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Jared Rodgers: So

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Jared Rodgers: you can’t just expect that school to be thorough with their their training. We’ve heard even doctors who are

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Jared Rodgers: get an average of a C. They’re still called doctors.

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Jared Rodgers: So what we really do is we take our time to put them through an orientation

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Jared Rodgers: again, to reintroduce all those things they probably already learned at school.

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Jared Rodgers: on how to properly conduct themselves in a home, how to properly maintain that home, how to properly work with a client, because a lot of times they are on their own. They can’t walk down to the nurse unit and say, Hey, I need help.

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Jared Rodgers: That’s usually themselves. Sometimes there’s family around

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Jared Rodgers: how to handle themselves in emergency situations. If a client is not feeling well, what are the signs of a stroke?

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Jared Rodgers: And then we also do clinicals, too, so making sure that they had that hands-on experience with those items that they would be seeing in the home. So my my motto is.

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Jared Rodgers: if if if a caregiver fails in the home.

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Jared Rodgers: Then I failed them because I didn’t set them up to succeed.

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Jared Rodgers: so I work my best to set them. Now, if I set you up to succeed, and you can’t do that. That’s different. But most of the time, if you just take the time you can help those individuals

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Jared Rodgers: succeed. We do that in our office as well. So when anyone comes into our into our organization, we let them understand the history of lifeforce. What’s our

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Jared Rodgers: process? What are our systems? What can we control in our everyday environment? Master those knowing that sometimes we’re not going to be able to control everything but prepare ourselves when those things do arise.

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Erin Cahill: Yeah, that’s great. And what role does technology play in managing live-in care today compared to when you 1st started? And how can agencies leverage it effectively.

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Jared Rodgers: So that that is still something. That’s I think we’re we’re learning.

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Jared Rodgers: When I, when I 1st started with Life Force.

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Jared Rodgers: a lot of the seniors

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Jared Rodgers: weren’t really adapting to the technology. But now you’re seeing

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Jared Rodgers: seeing it more often.

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Jared Rodgers: For example, part of it is the social connection. So we had a client who’s in her late seventies and she has a Facebook account. So you’re starting to see more seniors getting connected

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Jared Rodgers: socially through social media.

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Jared Rodgers: You also have the monitoring systems with medication.

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Jared Rodgers: What we’re seeing more often, too, is just the home surveillance.

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Jared Rodgers: So when when you have a caregiver in the home, it allows us to

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Jared Rodgers: monitor their performance. Not that we want to micromanage. Our staff

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Jared Rodgers: gives family that level of peace of mind. Reality is as you mentioned, you’re from East Canada, but a lot of times family members are maybe still back in East Canada. They want to stay connected, or you want to stay connected with them. A lot of those home surveillances have made it a lot easier to communicate the simplicity of being able to do video conferencing and having that conversation

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Jared Rodgers: telemedicine’s huge that has really kind of revolutionized

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Jared Rodgers: the ability of of keeping someone at home who’s not, because when you’re working with a living

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Jared Rodgers: clients will get to a point where it’s really difficult for them to leave that home.

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Jared Rodgers: and so they need resources that come to them.

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Jared Rodgers: Telemedicine has has made that possible.

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Jared Rodgers: giving those families that medical guidance and resource when they’re looking to provide care for their loved one at home.

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Erin Cahill: And last question for you, Jared, with over 30 years of experience, what do you believe are the critical components of building trust with families considering living care.

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Jared Rodgers: This is for any agency or any business, especially home care agencies. What I would say if you’re a home care agency, and you can master these 2 things.

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Jared Rodgers: you will

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Jared Rodgers: great things will will come your way. The 1st one is expectations

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Jared Rodgers: just being able to set your expectations with everyone involved

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Jared Rodgers: expectations of the caregivers, expectation of your office staff

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Jared Rodgers: expectations with families and the services they’re receiving.

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Jared Rodgers: This is not a hard sale industry. This is more of

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Jared Rodgers: a soft sell. Just it’s more of an education approach.

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Jared Rodgers: So.

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Jared Rodgers: Mr. And Mrs. Client, when our caregivers here in the home, here’s what you can expect.

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Jared Rodgers: You know what there still may be a fall, but we we try to reduce that

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Jared Rodgers: if that fall happens, this is our process on how to do that if things aren’t going well, this is where you go to call. This is what we expect you to set up for the home for our caregiver to be able to work.

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Jared Rodgers: You’re not a host.

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Jared Rodgers: You have someone that’s coming to help. And it is becoming a work environment. So here’s things that we need to do to keep keep things safe.

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Jared Rodgers: I think that’s the biggest thing is setting those expectations and being really clear when a caregiver is going into a home.

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Jared Rodgers: A lot of caregivers will complain. I went to the home. It’s not exactly what I

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Jared Rodgers: was told.

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Jared Rodgers: even if it’s not comfortable. Tell them, and my expectation is

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Jared Rodgers: with my staff is that they explain to the caregivers what are the challenges and the challenges aren’t always lifting.

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Jared Rodgers: Sometimes it’s you know what there’s a dog in the house. Sometimes it’s

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Jared Rodgers: the daughter is going to be a little bit more involved. So you just got to be comfortable with having someone looking over your shoulder, so identifying those challenges, setting that expectation clearly with the caregivers. Give them the chance to say No, I know that we’re sometimes in a crunch.

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Jared Rodgers: but it’s better to set up

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Jared Rodgers: everyone correctly.

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Jared Rodgers: and you’re going to build a huge amount of trust because they know that when Jared speaks

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Jared Rodgers: it’s exactly what I’m getting, and I always like to say there might be little things here. I’m missing, but I’m giving you majority of of what I know.

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Jared Rodgers: So I think the other thing is communication.

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Jared Rodgers: It’s it’s if you can master expectations.

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Jared Rodgers: And second, one communications.

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Jared Rodgers: That is extremely important. Sometimes you have to have those uncomfortable conversations with your staff.

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Jared Rodgers: and sometimes you have to have those uncomfortable conversations with the family members.

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Jared Rodgers: Just communicate.

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Jared Rodgers: keep everyone involved

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Jared Rodgers: and informed.

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Jared Rodgers: Those are my, that’s my 2 tips.

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Erin Cahill: That’s great. Well, thank you so much, Jared, for sharing your expertise with our lovely audience. Thank you so much for tuning in until next time. I’m Erin Cahill from Caresmartz.

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Jared Rodgers: Thank you.