Debbie Seplow has been committed to serving the needs of senior adults for more than 18 years. As the Director of Development for the Desert Southwest Alzheimer's Association, Debbie brought the annual Memory Walk to Arizona and was responsible for its growth and impact on our community. Later, Debbie was employed at the American Diabetes Association in Maricopa County. She was tasked with developing their Board of Directors, planning and executing their major fundraisers, and interacting with volunteers. In 1997, she opened Home Instead Senior Care where her positive influence impacts the lives of more than 5,500 seniors; bringing her vision of Quality Home Care to reality. Debbie also serves on local boards to work on initiatives that will improve the lives of seniors for years to come.

Debbie impacts our community through her successful efforts to improve, increase and advance the quality of life for senior adults as they age. The quality standards of Home Instead Senior Care are recognized nationwide and her agency sets the Standards of Excellence in our industry. She has raised the bar for all who provide care to seniors by insisting that her CAREGiving staff is educated, trained, and processed through many background checks. In requiring this level of quality, Debbie allows thousands of seniors and their families in Greater Phoenix to enjoy Peace of Mind, independence, and dignity. She is a hands-on owner who enjoys strong relationships with her employees and wants the lives of her staff to be enhanced through a positive work environment. This is accomplished by insisting on respect and rewards for all. This culture of respect and love for the seniors who receive care and the CAREGivers who provide care has an exponentially powerful and positive effect on our community.

With an exemplary caring spirit, Debbie is committed to improving the lives of all she meets. She has a huge sense of justice, fairness, kindness, and need to act to make it happen. She saw a need for more community involvement and created a Resource Center that brings together senior related services in a comfortable learning environment. From organizing special events for her staff to ensuring everyone she meets receives a smile or encouraging word, no one forgets they have been near Debbie. She uses her influence to create the impossible; to do things others can only think about. In the end, Debbie finds a way to make it happen, one smile at a time, one idea at a time!

Andy is a hands-on owner who has guided the growth and development of Home Instead over the last 12 years. Through his dedication to our administrative staff, CAREGivers, and clients, we consistently receive recognition for our excellent quality care.

Andy recognizes and appreciates the value each of his Administrative team brings to Home Instead. One of Andy's greatest strengths is his ability to empower each and every employee to grow both professionally and personally. He takes great pride in bringing out the "greatness" of each of his employees, whether they are part of our Administrative Team or one of our extraordinary CAREGivers - all are GREAT in Andy's eye and deserve accolades for doing a job above and beyond the norm.

Dawn came to Home Instead Senior Care in 2001 after being in the long-term care industry for over 10 years. While she served as Executive Director of a nursing facility in Greater Phoenix, she received the 1997 Administrator Recognition Award for Superior Leadership from the Arizona Health Care Association.

Dawn's position as General Manager has her overseeing all areas of the business. She helps to ensure that the mission of our organization, a high level of customer service, and quality services are provided. Working closely with our department managers, she helps to oversee that the day-to-day needs of our clients, their families, and our CAREGivers are taken care of in a timely manner.

Some of Dawn's favorite stories revolve around giving Peace of Mind to families. One such situation relates to our client Marion. Since she had a stroke several years before, Marion was being cared for by her daughter Sue. Sue had found out about Home Instead Senior Care from someone that her husband worked with. When she called, she was very apprehensive about leaving her mother with someone she didn't know. Sue spoke to Dawn on the phone for close to an hour going over different scenarios where our CAREGivers could help not only her mother, but relieve some tasks from Sue as well. She met with a member of our Client Services Team, Helen, in her home and afterward, agreed to give it a try with services one day a week. Within a couple of weeks, Sue increased hours and days of service so that she could have more respite time for herself. Her mother Marion really bonded and enjoyed the time when our CAREGiver came over to spend time with her. Talking to Sue now, many months later, she can't believe how much better she feels. She is much less stressed and not on edge when she assists her mother. The only regret that Sue tells us she has is that she should have done this much sooner!

Shelley joined the Home Instead Senior Care Greater Phoenix team in early 2004 shortly after moving to Arizona with her husband and three children. Whether it is during the day, in the evening, or on a weekend, she looks forward to meeting with potential clients and developing an individualized care plan to meet their needs. Her goals are to keep seniors as independent as possible and allow them to control and make decisions that affect their own daily lives.

When meeting with potential clients, Shelley presents Home Instead Senior Care services as an option that can be temporary or ongoing. She stresses that no matter the time frame, engaging a Home Instead CAREGiver creates a wonderful quality of life.

Shelley recently met with a gentleman whose wife had passed away within the last year. He was still independent, but tired easily, was lonely and depressed. He was very apprehensive to have a CAREGiver whom he had never met come into his home and felt like he was losing his independence, in short, he was very resistant. Shelley made him feel comfortable and reminded him that he was still the boss. She assured him our CAREGiver would do his laundry, housework and prepare healthy meals, and not interrupt his daily routine, so that he could save his energy for the things he enjoyed doing; golfing, working in his garden, or going to coffee with his friends. Because Home Instead Senior Care's goal is a Perfect Match between our clients and CAREGivers, she assured him he would like the CAREGiver. Then, Shelley asked him to try the service one time; and if he wasn't happy, he could cancel, no strings attached! He agreed to give it a try, but did not seem convinced. After the first day of service, Shelley called him to see how it went. He told her that the CAREGiver had baked him homemade cookies while she was there and it was the first time he had fresh baked cookies since his wife died. He said the CAREGiver reminded him of his niece and he enjoyed her company. He also said the CAREGiver was available to come back later in the week to go grocery shopping and help him plan some healthy meals. He said he was looking forward to a home-cooked meal instead of the frozen meals he had been eating. In the end, he wished he hadn't been so stubborn and started the service a lot sooner!

The thing that Shelley and her team enjoy the most about Home Instead Senior Care is meeting new people, whether it be potential clients or their adult children, educating them about the Home Instead Senior Care services that are available, and creating a custom care plan to meet their needs.

Dawn is charged with creating lasting relationships between our clients and CAREGivers. She and her team of Staffing Personnel truly believe that to make a relationship last and become extraordinary, our clients must be our top priority. To that end, listening to their needs allows the Staffing Department to understand and develop a one-on-one relationship between our clients and CAREGivers. Although listening is one of the most demanding aspects of communication, it is also one of the most rewarding. Taking the time to learn what is needed in each of our senior's homes is the true job of staffing. Each of our clients is special and each has individual needs and concerns. We take the time to ask questions so that the CAREGiver chosen to assist our clients is the Perfect Match.

This entails not only knowing our clients on a personal level, but also knowing our CAREGivers equally as well. Without knowing both individuals and their unique personalities and strengths, Dawn and her team could not create the most compatible and long-term relationships. Dawn is very proud of her team and they all take tremendous pride in staffing from their hearts.

Chad's passion is developing trustworthy, reliable, and compassionate CAREGivers. He leads the charge in recruiting good CAREGivers and turning them into extraordinary Home Instead CAREGivers. Chad's CAREGiver Relations team provide the initial and ongoing education to ensure our CAREGivers are prepared to meet the needs of their clients. Seeing the excitement in a CAREGiver's eyes gives the CAREGiver Relations team the encouragement to provide the best training experience.

An applicant, Betty, came into Chad's department after recently losing her husband to cancer. Although Betty had no professional caregiving experience, she felt a calling to help seniors live independently in their own home. She realized that not everyone had a family member that could be a full time caregiver, like she was able to do for her husband. Chad saw that her personal experience of taking care of her deceased husband would make Betty an outstanding member of the Home Instead CAREGiver team. Betty came to the CAREGiver training class a little nervous; at the end of training, she felt she had the knowledge and confidence to take care of her first client and all those that would follow. Betty has since become one of the many extraordinary Home Instead CAREGivers and continues to provide comfort and support to her clients.

Theresa moved to Phoenix in 1992 from the Sierra Nevada Mountains in California sight unseen. She was a little nervous about sand dunes, snakes, and whatever else the deserts had to offer. But upon waking that very first morning in this new place, she heard birds singing and fell in love with Arizona. She is married, with four grown children and five grandchildren.

Theresa oversees the Financial Services department, which includes Accounts Payable, Accounts Receivable, Payroll, and all bookkeeping activities.

Theresa and her team work diligently to educate our clients and their families in their payment choices. They can set up EasyPay, an automatic payment plan that includes either ACH (electronic payment) transactions or Credit Card billing or twice monthly invoicing "the old fashioned way" which ever works best for our clients. They also take on the mounds of paperwork involved in long-term care insurance policies, either sending in the required documents to the Claims department or to our client or family member. Theresa's team strives to make this process as easy as possible to suit each family's individual needs.

One client, Mrs. Mary H., had dementia and lived with her son. He worked with our Client CARE department, who staffed CAREGivers specially trained in dementia, for his mom. He also managed her finances and billed her Long-Term Care Insurance for our services. He called Theresa one day, completely overwhelmed with his life and his mother's care. Theresa and her team were able to take over billing Mrs. Mary H.'s long-term care insurance for him. Since he preferred to be reimbursed by her insurance company, they also put him on EasyPay and charged his credit card for each invoice. He has called several times thanking them for relieving so much stress and allowing him to concentrate on the most importing thing in his life, his mom.