In a nutshell, caregiving is anything you do that enhances the quality of life for seniors and helps keep them independent. Caregiving encompasses many responsibilities, and many caregivers don't even realize they are providing this service.
If you regularly provide emotional support for an elderly person, you could be considered a caregiver. If you're picking up prescriptions or taking a senior to a doctor's appointment, you're a caregiver. If you're helping an older adult around the house or paying the bills, you can add the caregiver title to your resume.
As a professional CAREGiverSM, you have the opportunity to expand these skills into a rewarding, fulfilling profession that can significantly enhance the quality of a senior's life. CAREGivers provide a variety of non-medical services that allow seniors to remain in their homes, including companionship and home helper services.
Companionship services are those that stimulate, encourage, and assist an individual. Primary responsibilities of companionship services include:
- Providing companionship and conversation
- Providing stabilization and assistance with walking
- Preparing meals and cleaning up meal-related items
- Providing medication and appointment reminders
Home helper services generally involve light housekeeping, errands, or incidental transportation. Primary responsibilities include:
- Performing light housekeeping tasks such as dusting, vacuuming, making beds, changing linens, cleaning bathrooms and kitchens, etc.
- Washing and ironing laundry
- Running errands
- Accompanying clients to appointments
Other responsibilities might be added to these lists, depending on your situation, but the most important and most rewarding aspect of a career in caregiving is the value you bring to a senior's life.
At the Home Instead Senior Care® network, we recognize the important role training and education play in preparing and supporting our CAREGivers.
Training and Support
From the moment you're hired, your local Home Instead Senior Care office will offer you a variety of initial and on-going training opportunities to help you enhance your caregiving skills.
Each new employee is provided with our CAREGiver training program that addresses issues such as communicating with seniors, planning activities, recognizing illnesses and depression, and even safety training. In addition, regular CAREGiver meetings allow you to share with and learn from other caregiving professionals. Plus your office staff are available any time to help answer questions and provide support. And as a Home Instead CAREGiver, you will be bonded and insured.
Some offices within the Home Instead Senior Care network also offer advanced Alzheimer's and Personal Care Assistant (PCA) training. In 2003, the American Society on Aging recognized Home Instead, Inc. as the Small Business of the Year for its exclusive CAREGiver Alzheimer's training program designed by The George G. Glenner Alzheimer's Family Center, Inc., world renowned dementia and Alzheimer's experts. This program and other professionally developed and recognized Alzheimer's training programs are used throughout Home Instead Senior Care's offices. They provide CAREGivers with the latest in Alzheimer's education and home care techniques.
"Our primary mission is to keep seniors independent for as long as possible, and that means making sure CAREGivers have the tools and training they need to provide older adults with the highest quality care," said Paul Hogan, Co-Founder and CEO of the Home Instead Senior Care network. "We offer resources and experiences that will benefit our employees in future endeavors they might choose."
What's in it for you?
- No experience or medical skills necessary
- Flexible scheduling - perfect for retirees
- Supplemental income
- Training provided
- Very rewarding
- A way to meet and interact with others outside your home
To learn more about caregiving and what it means to be a Home Instead Senior Care CAREGiver, watch the video above, or explore some of these other topics on our site:
