How to Hire a Caregiver for a Senior Parent or Loved One

Is it time to hire a caregiver for your senior parent or loved one? Do you need to hire a caregiver but wondering where to start? Children need to be involved in the hiring process for several reasons. Here’s what you should know, and what you should do as you hire a caregiver.

It’s important to find a caregiver who matches a senior’s personality and needs well. These tips can help you through the process.

Your Role in Hiring a Caregiver for Your Parent

Before beginning the hiring process, you should realize that you have an important role here. Chances are that you know your parent’s personality and needs the best, and you’re likely familiar with the care that they have received so far. You can provide the most honest and accurate assessment of your senior loved one’s needs, and this simple information is vital in finding an appropriate caregiver. This information also helps to determine what you should look for in a caregiver.

But there’s another reason to stay involved in the hiring process. By evaluating and choosing an appropriate caregiver, you will know that you have done your best to pair your parent with a caregiver who is skilled, knowledgeable, and able to help keep your parent safe and healthy. Knowing your parent is in good, capable hands can provide you with peace of mind.

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The Actual Hiring Process

The actual process of hiring a caregiver will be a little different depending on whether you hire privately, or if you go through a private home care business or national agency. A private home care business or national agency will help you through the process and will already have available caregivers in their contacts. If you take the private route, you will be responsible for deciding about the type of care your parent needs, drawing up an advertisement, and interviewing the applicants.

Always Conduct a Background Check

Never hire a caregiver without having performed a thorough background check. Remember, you are inviting this person into your parent’s home, where they will be unsupervised. You are also entrusting your parent’s safety to this person. Even though you may get a great feeling about a particular caregiver through your interview process, a background check is still necessary.

When you schedule home care through Cahoon Care, you don’t have to worry about background checks, since we’ve already done them for you. All of our caregivers undergo background checks, so we can be confident in who we hire and send to your home.

Provide Definite Expectations

If you opt to hire a caregiver privately, then you will need to be very specific about your care expectations. It is up to you to determine whether you need a caregiver who specializes in a certain type of care, like Alzheimer’s care. You will need to determine any skills or extra tasks, like taking your parent to doctor’s appointments, which the caregiver needs to be capable of doing.

When working with Cahoon Care, one of our Care Managers will sit down with you to draw up a personalized care plan for your parent. This comprehensive plan helps us to determine the type of care that is best for your parent, and then we can take steps to make sure that your parent gets the care they need.

Stay Involved

One of the most important actions that you can take in hiring a caregiver for a senior is simply to stay involved after the caregiver is hired. Check in with your parent to see how they are doing, and make sure that their changing needs are being met. Answer any questions the caregiver may have. Make sure that things are going well, your parent feels secure in the situation, and your parent’s health is being carefully monitored.

At Cahoon Care, we work with you to make sure that the caregiver you hire is a great fit, in terms of skills and experience, as well as in terms of personality. If you’re beginning the process of hiring a caregiver, please contact us. We would be happy to work with you to find a skilled caregiver who is the best fit for your situation.

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