Additional Resources Mentioned

• Episode 33: How To Create a Care Plan https://thecaregiversjourney.com/33-how-to-create-a-care-plan-five-essential-tips-alzheimers-and-other-dementias/
• Support the nonprofit The Caregiver’s Journey: https://give.cornerstone.cc/thecaregiversjourney

Takeaways

Tip 1: Create a Welcoming Environment

When caregivers first come into your home or your care receiver’s home:

• Provide a brief tour, highlighting where to find different rooms and caregiving supplies
• Ensure they have access to basics like drinking water, bathroom, and a comfortable break area
• Show them how to operate necessary household items (TV, kitchen appliances, monitoring devices)
• Give them access to Wi-Fifor them to stay connected
• Designate a specific spot for their personal belongings
• Prepare a small welcome basket to show your appreciation.

When caregivers come into a care community:

• Introduce them to the leadership team and the professional caregiving team members
• Encourage open dialogue between all care team members
• Teach them about the community’s organization and layout
• Show them places where they can take your loved one for activities
• Ask them what will help them feel comfortable in the new environment and work together to achieve it.

 

Tip 2: Thoughtfully Introduce the New Caregiver to Your Care Receiver

• Schedule the first visit during your loved one’s best time of day
• Begin with a shared, pleasant activity your care receiver enjoys
• If your loved one is resistant to outside help, frame the introduction carefully — present the caregiver as someone who’s there to help you rather than them
• Start with simple tasks like changing a bed or preparing a meal
• Invite the caregiver along on errands or appointments you take your care receiver on as a gentle way of integrating them.

 

Tip 3: Educate the New Caregiver About Your Loved One

• Introduce them to your care plan, whether it’s a notebook, digital file, or app
• Go through relevant parts of the care plan, without overwhelming them with too much information at once, and let them know they are welcome to add to it
• Include specific preferences, triggers, and important details about your care receiver. Sue Ryan shares an example to help the caregivers, the leadership team, and the musicians know a song not to play around her husband (who was 100% Irish): “Please do not play Danny Boy around my husband. While we don’t know why, for some reason it now instantly triggers him to sobbing.”
• Share photos and stories about your care receiver’s background, putting notes on the back of the photos to help prompt the caregiver
• Ask your caregiver what additional information will be helpful for them
• If appropriate, create opportunities for your care receiver to share their own story with the caregiver.

 

Tip 4: Build Trust Gradually

• Ask the professional caregiver to initially follow your established routines, as these are familiar to your care receiver
• Start with less intimate tasks; progress to personal care activities like bathing or dressing when the care receiver’s trust begins to build
• Once your trust begins to build, try stepping out for short periods to allow them time alone together
• Once trust begins to build, encourage the caregiver to share their techniques and be open to learning — experienced caregivers often have better approaches they can share.

 

Tip 5: Be Clear About Communications and Expectations

• Encourage caregivers to clearly communicate any issues they have, any preferences they have, any tips they have
• Welcome and model open communication. This minimizes misunderstandings or feeling something can’t be discussed
• Ask the caregiver to share what is most helpful for them to know about your loved one, you, and your home in support of them providing the best care
• Invite them to discuss challenges they’ve faced in the past and how they addressed them
• Set expectations about care updates — for example — how often, what level of detail, and in what situations you’d like updates, and encourage open communication as you both learn what works best
• Clarify household norms (like removing outdoor shoes inside the house, no smoking)
• Identify any areas of your home that are off-limits
• Be transparent about monitoring devices or cameras and show them how to use these resources
• Discuss meal arrangements clearly — whether they should bring their own food or can share meals with your care receiver.

 

Tip 6: Treat Them With Respect

• Avoid treating them as if they’re invisible when others are present (shocking to have to say, but sadly not an uncommon experience)
• Show interest in them as people while being mindful not to pry
• Acknowledge their accomplishments and express gratitude when they do something well
• Have constructive conversations when needed, always approaching them with respect, and being intentional about learning together how to resolve differences
• Be mindful of your conversations when they’re present — avoid divisive topics that might make them uncomfortable
• Don’t put them in uncomfortable positions where they feel unable to speak up. Several examples include: smoking, talking politics, or talking about religion.

 

Read More in This Blog here

 

Full Episode Transcript

Sue Ryan 

Sometimes it’s easy. Sometimes it’s hard. In this episode, we’re talking about introducing and integrating outside caregivers into your care support team. We’re bringing six tips.

 

Nancy Treaster

You might be adding a caregiver into your home. You might be hiring a caregiver for your loved one who lives alone. You might be adding a caregiver to your care support team in a care community. No matter where you’re hiring a new caregiver into your support team, integrating and introducing a new caregiver can be tricky. Sometimes your care receiver doesn’t think they need any help.

 

Shocking. Yes, it happens. It’s not unusual. How about that? Don’t give up. Don’t give up easily. Be patient. Take the time to let the process play out. And we’re gonna talk about that today.

 

Nancy Treaster

When we brought a new caregiver into our home, my husband told the new caregiver for at least the first couple of weeks, every time she came, he said, you need to go home and she would just smile at him and say, well, I’m not going home just yet.

 

Nancy Treaster

She recently started caregiving for someone new, and she told me the exact same thing is happening at the beginning. Every now and then after a while, he says, you need to go home. And she said,’ I just smiled at him and said, nope, it’s not time for me to go home yet’. So anyway, realize this is a process. We’re gonna talk you through it.

 

Sue Ryan 

Outside caregivers, whether they come into our home, they’re where our loved one is when we’re not there, or whether they come into a care community, provide valuable, valuable, valuable support and insights for us. When they’re in the communities, they’re another set of eyes and ears to give us information and also to help the care team provide the best care for our loved one. 

 

Tip one is to create a welcoming environment for them. We want them to want to care for our loved one. And so when we’re in our home, there are some things that are really, really helpful for us to do to create that welcoming environment. When they come, provide a brief tour of your home. Help them know what the house is like, how it looks, where the rooms are located, highlighting very much for them.

 

Highlighting for them where to find the different rooms, where to find the things that will be helpful for them, and also where you keep the products that they’re going to be using to care for your loved one. Ensure they have access to the basics like.

 

drinking water, the refrigerator, the bathroom, a place to take breaks and make sure if you haven’t created a nice environment that’s a place where they could take breaks, when you’ve had them come into the home and you find a place together with them that would be a good place, make it also a welcoming spot for them there. What do they like to drink? What snacks do they prefer? Have things around that help them feel welcome.

 

Make sure they know how to operate the necessary household objects. You know, like one of the most important ones here, we you know, we’ve got the TV or if there’s a camera, they’re going to be using it to monitor. But then if they’re going to be preparing food, things that you know, in the kitchen and things like that. So anything that’s going to help them to be able to operate the things in the home, create a special Wi Fi access or give them access to your Wi Fi so they can be connected all the time.

 

show them where their personal effects go. A purse, a jacket, a backpack, whatever those are, show them specifically where they can put them. And then this may seem like a small thing and it’s really not. Create a little welcome basket for them, something that shows that you’re intentionally welcoming them into your home. Then if they’re coming into the care community, it’s a little bit different.

 

One of the things that’s really important is for you to, with them, introduce them into the leadership team and the team of their peers who are in the care community. This shows the leadership team and the peers, you support this person being there and that it matters and you have conversations with them so they know that you are encouraging open dialogue, that you want them to work together, that you’re supporting this caregiver, that they’re important.

 

Teach them about the community itself. Help them understand the community, how it’s organized. Show them around. Show them the places where they can take your loved one. Show them where they can take a break and have them get familiar and answer any questions that you’ve got. So when we’re in there helping them out, it’s getting them very, very comfortable so that they can feel more at home more quickly. 

 

And that takes us to tip two, is when we’re introducing the new caregiver to our care receiver. And there’s a lot involved with this from different things that we can be doing what we want to make sure we’re doing is to make it as easy for everyone as easy for the care receiver as easy for the new caregiver and as easy for you so we’re the first visit we want to have we want to make sure we’re having it when our care receiver is in the best time of the day for them to have the best part of the experience.

 

So when it’s with our care receiver, we want to make sure we’re scheduling it at the best time of day for them, whatever that time is, when it’s going to be easiest for them to be receptive because they’re in the best mood. And begin with something that is a shared, pleasant activity, something that they enjoy doing that they’re already comfortable with that the new caregiver can kind of join or be a part of. 

If your loved one is living at home, and they’re resisting outside help, we want to start by telling them the truth they need to hear. And you’ll hear us talk about this in many episodes. There’s the truth, and the truth our loved one needs to hear. And what they need to hear is something that’s going to be comforting and reassuring to them.

 

And so if they’re somewhat resistant, the way we may choose to introduce our caregiver in the beginning, is they’re actually there to provide us help. And we’re introducing them to be a support mechanism for us. So we’re not focusing on our loved one.

 

And it’s a little bit of a different shift, but it can make it a whole lot easier for them. So we’re going to ask the caregiver to do something that would be a normal part of what they would do. Some of the light household work like maybe changing a bed or fixing lunch or doing something in the home, have them be doing that and just have it be a simple thing that they’re getting started with. 

 

When we’re talking with our care receiver, introduce them, well, this is Sarah, and she’s going to be doing some things around the home to help me. So the truth they need to hear is something that we’re not bringing somebody in to help you because we can’t handle things. And then simplify it. Invite them to come along on errands with you or go to a doctor’s appointment, go to the grocery store, go get something to eat. So do things that are gently integrating them into your lives.

 

Sue Ryan 

And it’s more on the fact that they’re a part of the team with you.

 

Nancy Treaster 

I like that Sue. And you know, don’t be surprised if in particular on the first visit that you don’t need them to stay the whole time. So chances are you’ve signed up for a four hour minimum, either with a private caregiver or with a care service. And sometimes that first visit you run out of things for them to do or it starts to get a little bit awkward with your care receiver. So don’t be shy about after a period of time if one of those two things happens, sending the caregiver home early. But realize if you do that, they’re going to get paid by the agency for the whole four hours or if they’re private, you need to pay them for the whole four hours, because you booked those four hours, they didn’t give those two hours to someone else. So you need to pay them for the whole time. But just don’t be shy about the first visit, just cutting it short if that feels like the appropriate thing to do. And don’t be surprised if it does. Now, if your loved one lives alone, and you can’t be there, try to get a friend or a family member. First, obviously, if you can be there, great, but if you can’t, try to get a friend or a family member to be there so that there’s a third person to sort of judge how things are going. You don’t wanna just be reliant on your care receiver to tell you how this went. It’d be nice to have, you know, another opinion. If that’s not possible, sometimes you live in New York and your mother lives in Florida and you’re helping hire someone and you get a caregiver to come to their house, but you can’t be there and there’s not a family member who can be there. Some of the best ways to introduce the new caregiver is to think of them like a friend. What would you ask a friend to do for your mother? Take your mother out to lunch, help her run an errand or two, come up with some activity that would be typically what a friend would do to help her, and just leverage the paid caregiver to do those activities. It’s just a good way to gradually introduce the concept of there’s someone else who’s gonna be involved in the care.

 

Sue Ryan 

Another thing that you can be doing with that when you’re not going to be there, no one else is going to be able to be there with a caregiver the first time and you live out of town. If your caregiver is able to use like Zoom, if you’re used to having either any kind of a FaceTime or anything like that, go ahead and have one of those so that your loved one gets the message that the caregiver is someone that who you’re familiar with and you’re already comfortable with and you can kind of mimic what that would look like and have a little bit of a conversation there if that’s part of the way the communication can still be going.

 

Nancy Treaster

That’s a great idea, I really like that. All right, So we’ve introduced the new caregiver, now tip three is we wanna educate the new caregiver on our loved one. The first thing you’re gonna do is you’re going to go through the care plan with the new caregiver. Now, soon I have an episode on what is a care plan and how to create a care plan. So listen to that episode to get a lot more detail about the care plan. 

 

For your care plan, you don’t wanna overwhelm the new caregiver, so you need to show them where the care plan is and how to get to it, but go through the parts of the care plan that they’ll be responsible for today, and then ease them into other parts of the care plan over time. Once you decide this person is the right person and all is good, you can expand on the care plan. Now Sue is the queen of care plans.

 

Sue Ryan

Yes, I am. Yes, I am. They are wonderful, and we’ve got links to those about wonderful digital care plans. And as Nancy mentioned, we have an episode on that. However, what I did is I wanted anyone to come into our home.

 

And I did the same thing. had it in the care community, although it’s a little harder because people come into the room. So you have to put it in, put it away so it doesn’t walk away at any rate. But in the home, on the kitchen counter and because we live in Florida and sometimes there are storms. So I would have a flashlight there just in case. But I had, I know, I know I had a notebook that I kept updated and it had the care plan in it and it had all kinds of tips and things that would be helpful because sometimes, you know, I wanted to make sure because there might have been a time when they were coming into the home because I had had an emergency and I wanted to make sure that someone coming into the home could be as up to speed with things as possible. So I put the information in there and I’ll give you a quick example of something.

 

My husband, % Irish, loved Irish music. The whole time I knew him, there wasn’t an Irish song he didn’t like. After he was diagnosed, we were listening to Irish music and the song, Danny Boy, started to play. And he went from happy as he could be to sobbing uncontrollably. Well, the first time I thought, well, that’s kind of strange. Not really sure why. The second time, you know, a few weeks later,

 

Danny Boy, same exact thing. So from I had it big in the care plan. Do not play Danny Boy when we moved to into the care community. Every musician do not play Danny Boy. But these are the kinds of things what the notebook does is it helps our caregiver be in the best position to provide the best care.

 

Nancy Treaster 

So that’s part of how we’re gonna help our new caregiver get to know our loved one. But also, we wanna share photos, we wanna share photos, we wanna tell them about our care receiver’s background, what they did for a living, where they used to live, really just get them immersed in who they’re gonna be taking care of. If it’s appropriate, you can sit down the three of you and let the care receiver tell their own story if they’re open to it. That’s a good way for the two of them to start to get to know each other or flip through photo books together. Totally up to you whether that’s appropriate, but it’s a good way to get them to get to know each other just a bit. Now, when you invite a caregiver into your home or into your loved one’s care plan, you are inviting them to love your loved one. So,part of this is understanding that’s what’s going to possibly happen here. They’re going to get very attached to your loved one. So this is a chance for you to set the stage for that. When my father had three different caregivers that we leveraged when he was taking care of him, and when he passed away, they were just as upset as the family was. When my father-in-law passed away, there was a young man who took care of him four days a week, half days.

 

He was there with us by his side the last few days of his life, and he was so upset that my father-in-law was passing away. When my husband’s caregiver and I shared the last few days of my husband’s life, we shared 24-hour care, and I promise you, sometimes I would see her just turn to the wall and put her hand over her face. I mean, she was just as upset as I was. They will come to love your loved one, so be ready for that.

 

That’s part of what we’re educating them to do. Now part of, we’ve introduced the new caregiver, we’ve educated them on our loved one. Now we’re going to begin to build trust and that is tip four. We’re gonna build trust but build it gradually. And some ideas here are to try, now first let me say, a professional caregiver is going to know how to do things often better than you do.

 

I’ve learned so many things. A new caregiver would come in and they’d say, well, why do you do it that way? I’d be like, oh, I don’t know. This is kind of how we do it. They’d say, well, here’s how I’ve always done it. And I’ll be like, oh, that’s a really good idea. So you will learn so much from them. But at least initially ask them to try to stick to the way that your routine is because your routine is what your care receiver’s familiar with. And you can slowly change it over time, but just ask them to honor the way you do things for now, and then slowly but surely as trust is built, you can start to integrate some of their ideas, and I promise you probably better ways of doing things, into the way you handle things. Also start with less intimate tasks. So for the first few visits, they don’t need to be helping your loved one shower or change their clothes or changing their depend-like product.

 

Let your loved one get to know them a little bit before they’re taking off their clothes in front of them. Just something to keep in mind, not necessarily what needs to happen on day one. So check those more intimate activities and schedule those in after we build some trust.

 

Nancy Treaster (20:44.728)

I think I’m gonna say this later, that’s reason I’m hesitating. I’m like, I wanna talk about that later. Now once you see that trust has started to build, this is your chance to slip out for a little while and leave the two of them alone together. So you’ll know when the right time is. Usually it’s only a few visits in and you’ll say, I need to run to the grocery store or go pick up the dry cleaning or run to a doctor’s appointment and you’ll leave the two of them alone together and that really…

 

is when you’re off to the races. And all is good and you should be able to leave them alone and get work done or whatever you need to get done while your caregiver’s there. So that’s how you get through the transition. It’s not easy, but it will happen. You’ll build trust slowly, I promise.

 

Sue Ryan 

Unless you’re somebody like my husband and it happened in a day. yeah, our transition was very smooth and very easy. And so you can have that. What we want to make sure we’re preparing you for is not everybody’s going to be the challenges that Nancy had and not everyone is going to be because I had several other care receivers and they were definitely at least if not more difficult.

 

But what that does is it helps us understand that there are some care receivers where they adapt things pretty quickly and pretty easily in some areas. And Jack wasn’t great in all areas, but in some of them. And yet there are others who have quite a bit of resistance. And both my grandmother and my dad had quite a bit of resistance in some areas. So at any rate, I don’t want to say the at any rate.

 

Nancy Treaster 

Well, you can say, but going through the things, the process, the way we’re talking about here will help minimize that. Well, hell, say it. And that’s why we’re going through this process, because by going things through this process in this way, you can minimize the resistance.

 

Sue Ryan 

Absolutely, and that’s what our goal is. And another thing that helps us reduce the resistance is tip five, which is being clear with the caregiver about communications and expectations. I’m going to say that one more time.

 

What was it you said that was easier with the transition? How did you end it?

 

Nancy Treaster 

But that’s why we’re going through this process through these steps is to help you make that transition easier.

 

Sue Ryan 

Another thing that helps us with those transitions is tip five, which is being very clear about communications and expectations with the other caregiver. And what we want to make sure that we’re encouraging, giving permission for, modeling with them, supporting them, everything is open communication, is sharing things, is we want them to feel comfortable. Like Nancy just mentioned that the caregiver had a better way of doing something. If they didn’t feel comfortable telling you that, they wouldn’t tell you. And they may know something that’s really, really great. 

 

Nancy Treaster 

They will know something too. That’s what the net is. You need to open the door so that those things can come flooding in.

 

Sue Ryan

We need to open the door. And so it’s important. And in any new relationship, you’re learning that. Make sure you keep sharing with them and reinforcing, because not everybody is that way, that we want the open line of communication. We want them to share with us the things that would make it easier. We want them to feel comfortable if there’s something they see that could be done differently, or if there’s a way that we could be supporting them, getting something to help them, if they need some more time, anything that we can be doing. So one of the things that we start with is,

 

Asking them what’s helpful for you to know I’ve learned in my life Resentments are unmet expectations If we’re not asking and if we’re not talking with them Then they can’t be in the best place to support us and we can’t be in the best place to support them So let’s do that. Just be really open and ask questions. What can we do to help you? What puts you in the best place?

 

And here’s what they found challenging in the past were the kinds of challenges that they face. And when they face them, what have they done? Or what kind of support would they want? And then encourage them anytime something that comes up is and we encourage them that anytime something comes up that’s challenging, please share it with us. So we know we don’t expect them to know everything or be able to do everything we want to be able to figure out how we work well as a team. Another one that’s very helpful.

 

And I’ve been in support meetings and I’ve gone, my gracious glory. When we’re talking about going out, maybe we’ve gone out to dinner, we’re running an errand or something and the caregiver is home with the care receiver, preset expectations about communication. That’s both what your caregivers are comfortable with and what you’re comfortable with. And I have heard the loved one saying, I want a quick update every 15 minutes on how they’re doing, but you can send a quick text. No, you guys come up with the right relationship, but preset expectations. And of course, that’s going to change if your loved one is ill, you’re going to want other kinds of updates and things like that. So these things vary, but just make sure again, it’s an open line of communication.

 

And then another one that you want to make sure they’re very clear about is any household norms you have. For example, we have inside the house shoes and we have outside the house shoes. We don’t wear outside shoes in the house. Well, that’s one of our household norms and everyone has their own norms. So make sure that the caregiver knows that because they would want to be able to be supportive. But if they don’t know they can’t. And this is again, where some resentments can come up. And then if you have areas in your home that are kind of off limits you would prefer they don’t go into they just there should be no reason they go to into unless the loved one walks in there and you can just bring them out make sure they know kind of like what’s off bounds and where do you prefer that they don’t go and then and this is really really helpful it’s reasonable and Nancy I’ve got a story let me go back and then another one this is reasonable it’s reasonable that in our home we might have monitoring devices. And I’m going to have you tell a story in just a moment, Nancy, about that. It’s reasonable we may have those. It’s reasonable we may have certain kinds of alarms. All of those things are very reasonable. It’s helpful when we tell our caregiver about them. And then if they’re ones that the caregiver should be using, that we make it as easy as possible for them to also be using them. And you’ve got a great example with your husband.

 

Nancy Treaster

Well, we had cameras in both in my parents’ house and in my house and in my in-laws’ house, all three of them, so that we could monitor our care receivers without having to follow them around the house, but also so we could see exactly what was happening. And so obviously when you have cameras, you need to let people know that they’re being recorded and that there’s cameras.But you may actually wanna show them how to use the cameras. So at my parents’ house, we actually used a baby monitor instead of a camera, but when my dad was taking a nap, we wanted to know when he started to get up. So the baby monitor had a motion detector, but that also meant that when the caregiver was in the room helping him get up, they were on the baby monitor, and same with recording devices at my house. So just something to know.

 

Honestly, I think it’s a good idea, but it’s up to you. But you know, just make sure you’re open about the fact that their cameras don’t hide nanny cams and stuff, you know, be open about.

 

Sue Ryan 

Yeah. Another thing that’s very, very helpful is to have conversations about meal arrangements. When we finally brought in a caregiver for my grandmother, she was on a very restrictive kind of diet and we had offered to feed her. We had offered to help her, you know, to allow her to have meals because she was preparing the meals for my grandmother. She said, no, I’ll bring my own meals in because I have specific requirements. What we want to make sure of is that

 

If they’re comfortable eating the same food we do and they want to eat along with our care receiver, they’re welcome to do that. If that’s something that you’ve got, if you’ve got a boundary and you don’t want them to, then make sure from the very beginning. They don’t expect that you’re going to feed them. 

 

Nancy Treaster 

Yeah, so don’t start it if you’re not going to keep it up. I think it’s what you’re saying, Sue, and that’s the truth.

 

Sue Ryan 

It’s two sides of it. Don’t start it if you’re not going to keep it up. Don’t start it to be nice at the beginning if you’re not going to do it. And then the other thing is they’re not really expecting that you’re going to feed them three square meals if they’re going to be there. So get really, really clear up front with what that is and honor it. And there may be some times when there’s an exception, but really make sure that there’s no confusion about it. 

 

Nancy Treaster (30:51.743)

So Sue, that leads me to tip six because tip six is about treating them with respect.

And you would not believe the horror stories I have heard from caregivers about what people have said and done around them as if they were invisible. It’s really terrible. So first, you also mentioned setting communication and expectations. I think that’s treating them with respect, open lines of communication so that they can tell you if there’s a better way to do something, they don’t feel shy about doing it. So that’s one, awesome. But the second one is also to ask them about themselves, get to know them. Now, here’s a tight line you walk. Don’t pry, but show an interest in them, in their background, in their living situation, in what’s going on in their life. If they wanna share it with you, they will. If they don’t wanna share it with you, recognize that boundary and back off without stepping over it. Sojust show an interest and if they wanna, if that appeals to them, great. If it doesn’t, back away. Acknowledge when something really good happens. If your loved one’s struggling with finishing a meal and they manage to get them to eat the entire meal, say, wow, that was awesome that you got them to do that or that we got through that whole sandwich. So just acknowledge them and recognize accomplishments. You would want that. as well and this is a great way because remember what do we want? We want them to want to come to your house. That’s what we want because they’ve got just as… Go ahead. No, no. They have just… We want them to want to come to your house because they have just as big a right to say, I’m not coming back as you do to say, I don’t want them to come back.

 

Sue Ryan

Exactly. One of the things though that this is not the absence of is that there are going to be times where you need to have constructive conversations when something hasn’t worked the way that you would have preferred it. When you’re setting up communications and you’re talking with them and you’re getting that trusted relationship, it makes it easier when you’re having a conversation about something that you would have preferred had gone a different way or for them to know that they could reach out to you the same way.

 

So we want to catch them in the act of doing something well. And if there’s the other side of it, we want to all feel that we can have those conversations as well.

 

Nancy Treaster

That’s a really good point. If you want to be able to say when things didn’t go well, you want to also make sure that you’re saying when things do go well. That’s a really good point. And then watch, my last one is huge. This is my soapbox. Watch what you say and do around them. And let me give a couple of examples here. If you smoke.

 

Don’t ask them if it’s okay if you smoke around them. I promise you, you’re the employer. They’re going to say it’s okay. Most people are gonna say it is okay, and they don’t really mean it. So do not smoke around people. Your caregivers, go out in the garage or somewhere else to have a cigarette. I promise you, get to have my caregivers come to my house and complain about the person who smoked in front of them. And I said, well, did you tell them not to smoke? Well, no, they asked me and I said it was okay. I’m like, why? But anyway.

 

Don’t do it.

 

Sue Ryan

Well, because they didn’t feel comfortable that they could have told them that. So we want to make sure that they can feel that. But don’t do it anyway. Yeah.

 

Nancy Treaster 

Because they’re the employee. Yes, exactly. But don’t do it, just don’t do it. And then the second one, and this is really my big soapbox, is don’t act like they’re invisible. So if friends come over to sit in your house and have a conversation and visit, and the caregiver’s there with your care receiver, don’t talk about religion and politics and things that are very divisive because

 

You don’t know what side they’re on and they don’t wanna hear it. And you put them in a very uncomfortable situation when you go down that path. You may be on the same page with your friends, but you don’t know about the caregiver. I had a caregiver tell me that one time she was at someone’s house and the conversation got so offensive to her that she literally looked at the person who hired her and said, I’ll be in my car, come get me if you need me. She couldn’t even sit in the house anymore. So please just…

 

Be aware that they’re there and treat them like you would anyone. Do not go down that path.

 

Sue Ryan 

Yeah. One of the things that we’ve learned is those first few visits may not go as smoothly as you would like. It doesn’t mean it’s not going to ultimately work out. We want to give it some time. Here’s one of the things where our caregiver knows more than we do.

 

that we want there to be instant chemistry, that everything goes smoothly and it zips right into it, and it may not be that way. And in the story that Nancy shared, the caregiver knew that the care receiver was going to be a little resistant. She knew how to handle that. Let’s have those conversations. there’s some challenging times in those first few visits, talk with the caregiver and say, do you feel this is something they’re going to get through?

 

Or do you feel that we need to look at someone else? Don’t give up after the first visit and don’t assume that if your loved one doesn’t like them the first time that you just need to get somebody else because it’s most likely that they’re not going to like the second or the third or the fourth or however many you get the first time.

 

Nancy Treaster

And frankly, even for yourself. So my mother told me more than once that a certain caregiver, a new one would come and say, how’d it go? Oh, I don’t think it’s gonna work out. Well, she said that about all of them on the first couple of visits. And one of the ones that she said for several visits turned out to be her favorite caregiver for my dad. And even my husband’s main caregiver who was with us for almost four years, when she first came the first few times, I thought, this isn’t really what I need. She’s not the right fit. She needed to get to know us. I needed to get to know her better. And she turned out to be, of all the caregivers I’ve had, and we’ve had many between the households that we had care receivers in, she turned out to be by far the best. And yet, if you’d asked me in the first few visits, I’d said, no, I don’t think it’s gonna work out.

 

Sue Ryan

So please practice the blessing of patience and work through it and you’ll ultimately figure it out down the road after sometimes it’s like my husband works out right away, sometimes it’s like my grandmother and you pray for patience.

 

Nancy Treaster

Right, and sometimes it won’t be the right caregiver. I don’t want to pretend it’s all about patience. Sometimes it’s just not right, and that’s okay too. That’s okay too.

 

Sue Ryan 

It isn’t. But through, but by going through these tips, we get clarity on that.

 

Nancy Treaster

I agree, it’s easier to get clarity, but do know that your niggling that it’s not right may need a little more time before you really make that decision. Okay, are we ready to summarize?

 

So in this episode, we talked about how to introduce and integrate a caregiver into your care plan or your care support. So let’s summarize. In this episode, we talked about how to introduce and integrate a caregiver into your care support team. We shared six tips. One, create a welcoming environment. Two, introduce the new caregiver. Three, educate the new caregiver on your loved one. Four,build trust gradually, five, be clear about communications and expectations, and six, treat them with respect. We want the caregiver to want to come back to our house.

 

Now, if you have tips that you think would help people integrate a new caregiver into their care support team, please leave those on our Facebook page or our Instagram page. The links are in the show notes. Anything we talked about here where we feel like you need more information on, there’ll be a link in the show notes for that as well. If you like this podcast, please follow it or subscribe to it. Please share it with other people as well.

 

We really, really appreciate it.

 

Sue Ryan

We’re all on this journey together.

 

Nancy Treaster 

Yes we are.