Understanding Home Care with Shawn D’Amelio

*The following is the output of transcribing from an audio recording. Although the transcription is largely accurate, in some cases it is incomplete or inaccurate due to inaudible passages or transcription errors.

The following podcast is provided by care partners living and answers for elders radio, and welcome to answers for elders radio everyone. I am here with a special guest that was with us not too long ago, but you guys, as part of care partners, I guess, sponsorship of today’s show, you guys are now care partners has a wonderful power partner that they would like to introduce and I know that Sean Demilio from with a little help, has been on one other time on our show long time ago. But I am so incredibly honored because, to all of our listeners, Sean is here because truly she is one of the most shining stars and her organization when it comes to in home care and Sean, welcome to the program thank today. Thank you for having us. You know, I know that there’s a lot of times people will say, I think mom or dad might need some help around the house, and so you and it seems to me like lately, maybe it’s just Ni Sean, but you’re getting bombarded with all these TV commercials from franchises like you know that have national companies, and they’ll say pick up the phone and you’ll get this, you know, eight hundred number way off in the distance and all of a sudden it’s like you’re in the middle of this churning wheel and you’re really not knowing. You know, it’s kind of a black hole of what you’re dealing with when you’re dealing with franchises, and so I’ve made no secret on the show that I’m not a big fan of going that direction. What I am a big fan about is independently owned local homecare agencies, and there’s a lot of reasons why and, with a little help, is one of those shining stars in our greater puget sound area that really are there five hundred percent for our seniors and Sean, I am so glad you’re here that we can kind of talk about why is it that there is a difference, because there is a huge difference and obviously you know just to talk and educate people about, you know, the commitment that a company like yours has to seniors. So I’m so glad you’re here to share that. Thank you. So tell us a little bit about with a little help and what makes you different. With a little help is in their twenty year we are locally owned and I love that our owner, Paul Cibison, lives right here in Seattle and and that’s a key piece, just because our owner is here. He’s not in another state. He’s here helping us make the day to day decisions that need to be made. Well in there’s a commitment. There’s a commitment and he’s start of our community and there’s a heart art right, which it’s not some big business conglomerate. That’s that’s just turn you know, turning and burning. People buy in a business opportunity. Right. This is somebody. When I think about a locally owned agency, this is somebody that puts their heart and soul and spirit and passion into helping seniors. It’s something much greater than anything that you could amagin exactly, exactly any and he’s part of our bigger community. You know, he sits on the board for sound generations. He’s part of the Seattle area. You know, we works with the Ballard Senior Center. He’s you know, there’s just things that he does in our own community right. That supports our seniors right, and I like that. The other piece about being locally owned is we know who our local vendors are. You know, we’re working with SASCO met every day. Right there are locally family owned business that provides medical equipment. We work with care partners, another locally owned company who we love, who we love, yeah, exactly, who also support a bigger population because they also support our medicaid population as well as our private pay population. Right, right. Yeah, well, and and Sean, you know, one of the things that we talked about when when somebody needs help or home care, and I don’t know if you’ve been on our website, but lately we’ve had a we have a little tool out there that how do you assess when it’s time for your parent to get help or a loved one? And you know, that’s kind of a really, really difficult question for a lot of people to determine. I know that there’s a lot of families out there that might think, well, you know, mom is probably okay, you know, but you don’t think about the little things like the Daytoday, things that they deal with. And how often do you know what are the mourning signs? What are the little things when it’s time for home care? And I think one of the things that an independently owned agency is is not only do you have the consistency of the community. But you guys also really dial in because you are local. You’re there to kind of help the family, consult along the way and you’re connected to other resources as their needs expand. And I think a lot of times that somehow doesn’t Mesh with a lot of or other organization. Right. That’s one thing that we’re really proud about because we know home cares not for everybody, right, but we’re really great resource. We put on a conference every year. We have resources. At that conference I think we had twenty six venders of locally owned vendors in the Seattle area. I think that they’re really an important piece of the puzzle because there’s so much that’s happening in in somebody’s world when things are when they’re not able to accomplish everything. So what what can we do to support them? What can we do to support them with transportation, with medical equipment, with senior housing? They may need to move, maybe they are unable to stay at home anymore. What can we do to support them? Right? Right. So, and and the difference between because people will sit back and say, what’s the difference between home care and home health? And that’s something obviously that I want to talk to in this next segment, but in the meantime we’re talking to Sean Demilio and Sean is the director of Business Development. Is that correct? Yes, or with a little help. So just tell us a little bit about where you guys serve. What areas and puget sound do you serve? We serve all of King South Nahomash and North Pierce. HMM HMM, so you’ve got a pretty big chunk of the puget sound, greater puget sound area, we do. Yeah, and you do non medical home care, which will kind of I want to talk to you briefly about right. So a lot of people don’t understand the difference and of course we talked about it on the show before, but I think it’s really important that we kind of re emphasize that. So what’s the different Shan between Home Health and home care? Well, okay, home care. Home Care is helping with task of daily living, helping you with meal preparation, bathing, showering, dressing, lighthouse keeping, transportation, grocery shopping, home doctor appoint doctor’s appointments and companionship, which is really one of the bigger things. Right. So I’d say that’s one of the bigger things that we do is compionship and I’m proud of that. You know, are the caregivers that we hire so amazing. They understand the value of not just cooking a mill for somebody, but sitting down actually eating a mill with somebody is so important. It’s having that connection. I know when my mom was in assisted living she always used to have she used to beg the caregivers to come and just sit down and talk to her and and you know, I didn’t really understand that until later how important that. You know, that piece is right. And you know, one of the things that it’s frustrating as far as home care home health, oftentimes people are getting sent home from the hospital with home health and I think they’re going home with home care and home health is in reality what home health is? It’s going home for, you know, proclamately, thirteen visits, maybe with Otpt, occupation, occupational theraical, physical therapy, speech therapy. It usually home health has to do with an extension of a health issues what I talked to families about, and it’s paid for by medic care. Right. It is not an and home care is different because it’s not a medical care, it’s more of an daily living care and it’s something that I think that a lot of seniors need that. And if it’s maybe two to three days a week, just start. Maybe you come in. What is your like when you come to meet with a family? What do you what kind of is the expectation? Did they should they have? Really just to find out if we’re a good match for them as much as if they’re a good match for us. And there’s no cost to this. There’s no cost, it’s free. Mary will come out, Mary or Sinday usually come out. And what they do is they come out and they get to know what somebody needs. They get to know the person as a person first, and I think that’s really important well, and it is so important to understand the values, understanding what their likes and dislikes are. And I always a huge proponent. I’ve said this before, I’m going to say it again. Even before you need home care, even if your parents are fully independent, okay, I still believe that it’s important to establish a relationship with a home care agency, and the main reason is is that mom or dad could fall and sprain their ankle. Mom or dad could get it really sick with the flu and you have to go to work as an adult child or something like that happens where they they’re going to need some help, even on a temporary basis. The challenge with that if you don’t have that relationship, that is not the time to be interviewing people when you’re not well right. So to have somebody that’s they are, that you can just pick up the phone and say, you know what, I’m not feeling well this week. I you know, I just need some help around the house, I need you know, I need to go to a doctor’s appointment, anything like that. To have an agency that you’re already kind of established with, I think is a huge, huge thing. I couldn’t agree with you more. You know, sometimes will even do something where we’ll go out and do an intake, set up. The whole process of all the paperwork side of things are gone. Exactly how to upset people up for success and the other pieces. You sometimes people feel like we’re trying to take away their independence and you know, in reality what we’re trying to do is help support them and seeing it dependent and I always try to say, Hey, let us do the dirty work so that you can save all your energy and time for the fun stuff. Right. Let us help you do with the laundry and that lighthouse keeping in the meal preparation, maybe some grocery shopping, because those are really challenging things. Are Basically having company come your and you just need some help to get meals prepped and and your house cleaned up a little bit and just kind of feel like you’re you’ve got some grounding before, you know, at the the your family arrives or something like that. It’s something that really is a ease of you know, peace of mind for seniors as they need it, and the Nice thing about it is is that you just a phone call away once you’re established. Then that so what happened. So obviously, you know, we could talk about how great it is to be a caregiver and and just in summarizing, you know, working for a company like yours, you know it’s got to be amazing and of course you guys do have openings for people that could do some things like that for you. Is that correct? We do. We do. We’re always looking for amazing caregivers. We have wonderful benefits where I would say one of the things I pride ourselves some most on is all the education we provide for our caregivers and the support and the staff support right office. The supports them when they’re out in the field with families and if they don’t have a home carried certificate or a CNA, will support them along the way. And Guy that’s onto getting that. They have two hundred days to do that. Took that slush. That’s so they could start and get some income coming in to assamblish that. So, Seawan, how do we reach you? You could reach us by phone to zero six, three, five, two seven, three nine nine, or you can go to our website at www with the little helpcom. I’m so glad you around this day. Thank you so much for having they are really appreciate it. The preceding podcast was provided by care partners living and answers for elders radio. To contact care partners living, go to care partners livingcom