7 Must-Have Soft Skills for Caregivers in 2025

7 Must-Have Soft Skills for Caregivers in 2025

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Erin Cahill: Welcome to CareSmartz360 On Air, a Home Care Podcast. I’m Erin Cahill, Account Executive at Caresmartz. Today, I am absolutely thrilled to introduce our remarkable guest, Dr. Eboni Green, Co-founder of Caregiver Support Services. With over 20 years of leading this organization since its inception in 1998, Dr. Green is a powerhouse in both healthcare and business.

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Erin Cahill: From her humble beginnings as a dedicated nursing assistant to becoming a celebrated college professor, her journey has been nothing short of inspiring. She completed her Phd. and authored practical books that empower caregivers, employers, and organizations. Dr. Green believes that strong patients need strong caregivers, and she is here to champion those unsung heroes on the front lines.

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Erin Cahill: Today’s episode features her insights on “7 Must-have Soft Skills for Caregivers in 2025”. Get ready for a blend of wisdom, humor, and heartfelt passion as we dive deep into the art of caregiving. Let’s celebrate care with laughter today! Welcome to the podcast, Dr. Green.

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Eboni Green: Thank you. Wonderful introduction. Thank you very much.

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Erin Cahill: So we’ll jump right into it. 1st question for you, what are the top 7 soft skills that will be most transformative for caregivers in 2025 and why?

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Eboni Green: So I think that there are a number of soft skills that are really important for caregivers.

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Eboni Green: Because we want caregivers armed with the right

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Eboni Green: information that is going to help them, and skills that are going to help them feel prepared to care for their clients or loved ones. And so these top ones include patients.

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Eboni Green: kindness, active listening, communication, awareness, empathy, and I would say essential would be empowerment and self-care.

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Erin Cahill: Great and how crucial are adaptability and resilience for caregivers? And what strategies do you recommend to build these skills?

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Eboni Green: So I think that we are always looking to

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Eboni Green: arm caregivers or equipped caregivers with skills that are going to help them reapproach similar challenges that they face each day, and what I mean by that is, was talking with the caregiver, and one of the challenges that the client is

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Eboni Green: using the call light excessively, and then also wants someone to immediately respond to his needs. And so this is not a major request, but when the client is upset because it’s taken a longer time to get to him, because maybe there’s care being provided. At that time

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Eboni Green: we want caregivers to know that

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Eboni Green: you may have to reapproach a similar situation over and over again, and we want you to have the skills of resilience so that you can approach

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Eboni Green: this situation without being upset or frustrated.

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Eboni Green: So I think empowerment and resilience are extremely important. And I really think that adaptability is in there as well, because you are going to be adapting to new situations, even though you may be with the same client. Their lives are changing. And so we want you to be able to help them

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Eboni Green: and guide them as they make those changes.

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Erin Cahill: And can you share an example of how strong problem solving skills have led to better outcomes in caregiving scenarios?

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Eboni Green: Absolutely so. I think one of the things that’s important is active listening. And so sometimes what a client is saying

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Eboni Green: is not what they really mean, and what I mean by that is, maybe you have a client who is again, who is really frustrated with the situation, or is very angry. So we want to make sure that when we are working with those clients that we would have an opportunity to really, problem solve by active listening.

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Eboni Green: and what that looks like is taking a moment.

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Eboni Green: taking a step back, sitting down with the client to find out what is the actual problem at the center of their frustration and active listening means that we are listening.

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Eboni Green: And we are not trying to solve a problem. At the moment. We are just allowing the client to express his or her feelings so that we can hopefully get to what is the real root of the problem. And that does take practice.

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Erin Cahill: And can you what you were? You mentioned earlier about empathy? What role does empathy play in the caregiving process? And how can it be nurtured on the job?

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Eboni Green: I really think that empathy is often misunderstood. So I very much appreciate this question, because what we want our

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Eboni Green: caregivers to understand is that there is a difference between empathy and sympathy.

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Eboni Green: and what that looks like is, maybe I have a caregiver who’s new in the field. He or she is. Has gone into this because they really love people, and they want to help people. That’s why I went into caregiving. And so you may think that by doing everything for the client

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Eboni Green: that you are then showing how much you love him or her, you I love my client. I’ve heard this. I’ve heard this a million times. I really love my clients. So I go in and I do everything for him, or I go in and do everything for her, because I just love them so much, and I just don’t want them to have to, you know. Do these certain things?

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Eboni Green: Well, that is a sympathetic approach with empathy. We understand the experience of the client, but we also empower him or her to do what they can do for themselves, and we do that in a positive and structured way.

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Eboni Green: and we help with the things that the client cannot do. The benefit is twofold.

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Eboni Green: The client maintains his or her functions.

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Eboni Green: and is able to continue putting on the socks. Maybe I only need to tie the shoes, and as a caregiver it helps me

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Eboni Green: prevent burning out

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Eboni Green: so that I’m not going in and doing everything. And now my client is no longer empowered. So now I have to do these things, and I am burning out because I’m frustrated, because now I’m here doing these things. So we always want to position empathy. First,

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Eboni Green: it’s okay to feel sad. It’s okay to feel like you really want to help. But you’re really helping by encouraging your client to do the things that they can do for themselves, and that way they maintain their highest level of functioning, and you don’t burn out.

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Erin Cahill: That’s great advice. And with technological advancements reshaping healthcare. How do you see these tools influencing the cultivation of essential soft skills among caregivers in 2025?

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Eboni Green: I think that technological advances can be extremely helpful with making sure that we have some of the things that we wouldn’t have necessarily had access to when I was a frontline caregiver. And what I mean by that is we wouldn’t have had access to online training tools or online articles that we could read where individuals are maybe

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Eboni Green: providing advice. We wouldn’t have chat groups like Facebook groups where you can join and gain some support there. And we wouldn’t have organizations like your organization where you are helping with the organization part of the caregiving role which takes a lot off of employers so that they can then focus on the things that caregivers really need, which is the opportunity to

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Eboni Green: perform care at the highest level without having to worry about. How am I gonna get training? Am I gonna have to go to the office to do that? How are my hours going to be billed? Am I gonna have to go into the office to just drive into the office just to clock in, or you know, like, I said, access to information and things of that nature. We did not have that in the past, and I think it’s going to be

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Eboni Green: really fabulous for caregivers to not have to go a million places to find the things that they need.

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Erin Cahill: Well, thank you so much, Dr. Green, for sharing your expertise. And to our lovely audience for tuning in. Until next time, I’m Erin Cahill, signing off.