Last week, we spoke about the need for being cautious when it came to selecting the right caregiver. Because of the existence of senior abuse, you should put into effect as many safeguards as you can to protect your elderly loved one. One such safeguard that you can easily put into action is to make sure that if your elderly loved one needs an in-home caregiver that you make sure that a trained and trusted caregiver is hired. Easy ways to do this include conducting a criminal background check and making sure that they have experience and respect within the senior care industry. Many care services, such as Paradise In-Home Care, will do this for all of their caregivers, increasing their usefulness to you, the person in need. It’s not something that you ever want to worry about, and if you go this route, your odds of needing to go down considerably.
In New York State, for example, a woman was recently arrested for stealing about $3,000 from a disabled woman that she was caring for. In the grand scheme of things, $3,000 is not a huge amount of money. But what’s worse than the theft is the betrayal of trust that occurred. The caregiver that was arrested was not working with a service, but rather was self employed. It’s not clear yet whether she was hired independently or through a caregiving service, but in the end, it doesn’t matter. She was not directly affiliated with a professional service and in this instance, no background checks had been conducted on her. There is also some concern that she may have done this with other elderly people that she has cared for over the years. The investigation is still going on, and no final verdict has been given, but this does illustrate a very real concern in the senior care industry. The elderly population can be vulnerable, and although theft is rare, people that are in the industry for the wrong reasons can be prone to taking advantage of those that are in a position of weakness.
You can’t know everything about a caregiver before you invite them into your home, but you can take the proper steps to know the important things. If you’re thinking of hiring an in-home caregiver, it is important that you do what you can to make sure that you pick the best caregiver you can. Going through a service that will conduct background checks, insure their services, and make sure that a caregiver is paired with a personality that they will work well with are all valuable things to have on your side, and this is done far more easily with a care service than it ever can be through an independent caregiver or a referral agency. Just taking your time to find a service that does these things can save you a lot of heartache later on in the process. Really, it’s an easy step to take, and can be very beneficial to everyone in your family.
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