Choosing a home care provider can be a complex and important decision. You need to ensure an at-home care agency is well-regarded, experienced, offers the types and levels of care you or a loved one needs, and will do everything possible to protect the happiness, well-being and independence of the person or people they are looking after.
For many, the first care visit is a time of some anxiety, without knowing who is going to knock on the door, whether they'll form a rapport with the care recipient, or how they'll provide companionship to somebody they’ve not met before.
Guardian Angel Carers, a sector-leading and rapidly expanding nationwide home care provider with a reputation for innovation, has addressed these common concerns. This guide explains how respected home care managers match each family or individual with a hand-selected carer based on the parameters that matter most.
The Practicalities of Appointing a Trained Carer to a Home Care Recipient
We'll start with the basics, which include statutory and mandatory assessments, such as background checks. We and every home care provider must conduct these to ensure each carer has the necessary skills, experience, and standing to provide care in a person's own home.
Enhanced Disclosure and Barring Scheme (DBS) Checks are the standard, previously known as CRB checks. They look for criminal offences or convictions and previous incidents or issues that may mean a person is not permitted to work with vulnerable people.
In order to conduct a DBS check, we require a valid and official form of photo ID and evidence of the carer's home address—which equally acts as a method for confirming that the carer's name and contact information are accurate.
Additional assessments might include driving licence checks, although this can depend on the nature of the role. Verifying that a carer has a full, valid and clean license, without any bans or motoring offences, may, for instance, be essential when a caring role is expected to include help with transport, travelling to and from social events, or grocery shopping.
Carers Review Process for Applicants
All of the above are obligatory checks and tell us whether an applicant is legally allowed to fulfil a role. However, they fall short of providing any detail about a person’s capabilities, warmth, compassion, kindness and responsiveness to requests for help with additional tasks, or how well they might manage respectful and dignified personal care.
This is why we include a skills assessment and psychometric test for all Guardian Angel Carers applicants.
Psychometric tests are a tool used in recruitment that evaluates multiple areas, such as a person's abilities, cognitive functioning, and personality, to determine whether an individual is a great fit for a job—irrespective of their qualifications.
While psychometric tests can’t necessarily be passed or failed, they offer valuable insights, such as how well a person might solve problems and apply judgement or be able to spot errors—essential for carer roles that involve any interaction with medications—and how well their personality fits into our ethos and philosophy of family-feel, person-first care.
Skills assessments work similarly. In conjunction with verifying any existing certifications, accreditations, or qualifications, they help us determine whether a junior candidate or applicant who hasn't worked in a care setting before has the right personal qualities.
Those might include, for example, emotional intelligence and being able to comfort, reassure, and connect with a care recipient who is vulnerable or worried; physical abilities to help with lifting, carrying, and domiciliary tasks; and judgement and decision-making skills.
Each of our policies is designed to safeguard the satisfaction and safety of care recipients and also ensure we make informed decisions about which carers and roles align perfectly. That helps us protect job satisfaction by checking that both the carer and the people they support will find their care appointments or arrangements rewarding.
Matching Personalities and Interests When Assigning Home Care Roles
The next stage is less quantifiable but involves learning all the important details about the person, family, or couple in need of care. This matters because if, for example, a person loves a particular sport, craft, hobby, or activity, it makes sense to look for a caregiver with similar or aligned personal interests.
It could be as simple as choosing a carer who can crochet or knit and who will happily be able to help a care recipient with tricky stitches or selecting new yarn or wool.
We might also look at appointing a carer who follows the same football team and will genuinely love nothing more than sitting down with a cup of tea to watch the latest match.
Shared interests and passions can be as influential as practical skills because they assist with continuity and relationships, companionship, and comfort. This all means a person who might potentially be at risk of isolation has somebody there to help who has the same excitement and enthusiasm for the things they love most.
Why Ongoing Supervision, Monitoring and Training Uphold High Home Care Standards
Of course, less experienced carers work alongside a senior colleague until they have the confidence and ability to work independently. This means any carer visiting your home will have been approved as a professional, competent professional who has demonstrated that their capabilities meet the rigorous standards we expect.
Notably, once a carer is in a role or part of a team providing visiting, overnight or live-in care, this doesn't mean that they work autonomously without support, check-ins and supervision from their local management team.
We recognise the need for dialogues to maintain accurate, up-to-date care assessments and the value of supporting carers working in the community.
Ongoing communications between carers, managers, recipients, and families are crucial since they enable us to exchange notes, advise of changes, chat about the person's well-being, or just ensure everybody is working from the same page.
Read more about Guardian Angel Carers - Guardian Angel Carers Explains the Key Role of Home-Based Support in Overcoming the Respite Care Crisis
About Guardian Angel Carers
Guardian Angel Carers is a leading home care provider dedicated to delivering compassionate, personalised care services. With a strong focus on independence, dignity, and quality of life, the company supports individuals in the comfort of their own homes, offering a range of services from companionship to complex care needs.
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Source Company – https://www.gacarers.co.uk/
Published by: Steve OBrien