Matt Cohn, our local Baton Rouge franchise owner, used the quote in a CAREGiver newsletter article for Women’s History Month last year. He didn’t realize it was posted at the desk of our Community Educator. The words are also part of the design of artwork hanging in our Training Room, where it is often quoted. They are the words of Maya Angelou, who wrote, “I’ve learned that people will forget what you said, people will forget what you did, but people will never forget how you made them feel.”
That simple philosophy is basic to our mindset here at Home Instead. Genuine care will always be felt, and always goes far beyond some companies’ definition of care-giving. Caring is not just about checking off a list of assigned duties. In day-to-day reality, caring gets translated into the attitude we bring to our work, whether as a CAREGiver interacting with a client or an administrative staff member speaking with a client’s granddaughter.
For those of us who are assisting our home care clients firsthand, caring means remembering to respect and value the person whose true self may be difficult to glimpse beneath the mask of a disease. A client with challenges may be unable to remember the specifics of our speech or actions, but will at some level simply savor the essence of our caring attitude. Especially for someone with a degenerative condition like Alzheimer’s, the emphasis is on how that someone is made to feel in that moment.
I laughingly recount to new CAREGivers who are taking CIT I, our initial training class, that t I advised my daughter prior to her wedding that “you don’t just marry the man, you marry the WHOLE family.” At Home Instead, we help not only the actual client in the home, but the rest of the family as well, by giving family caregivers respite. By coming alongside to give assistance to their loved one, we remind families that they are not alone in this journey. Whether they have a loved one with dementia or whether they have a loved one who just needs a little extra help, the family can feel confident. The family can feel reassured. The family can feel worry free.
The caring doesn’t end with the workday, though. Home Instead was recently honored to present a $15,000 grant to the Greater Baton Rouge Food Bank. This local Home Instead team is involved with programs like Be a Santa to a Senior and the Alzheimer’s Services of the Capital Area’s annual Walk/Run to Remember. Individually, our staff members are involved in their churches and community in various ways. Last Thanksgiving saw Baton Rouge staffers working to provide needy local families with Thanksgiving meals. This spring Megan, our social worker, will be traveling to Haiti with a local church to minister to the multitudes still struggling to recover from last year’s earthquake.
“Caregiving” as it should be is not just taking care of basic needs or watching over another person..it is a determination to joyfully pour oneself into another life. It is a loving commitment to making a difference in that life! “Caring” is not just a characteristic we at Home Instead would like to display. It is who we are.
I hope this was helpful. If you have any questions or if you know of a senior who could benefit from our array of home care services in Baton Rouge, please call us at 225-819-8338 or contact us here. We’d love to hear from you! We accept long term care insurance and have a staff of over 200 trained home care professionals serving the greater Baton Rouge area.
