The Importance of Caregiver Mental Health Support

Transcript:

What kind of mental health resources or support systems are in place to help caregivers cope with emotional challenges of their work?

I can remember when I was working in the field as a caregiver, as a CNA, and it is a very lonely job. You don't get to see co-workers on the daily or if you do, they're just telling you what they did and didn't do during their shift, and now it's up to you to do it, you know, and so you don't really feel like you have a lot of support.

So having those systems in place is really important. At Senior Home Companions, we do have an encouragement team that caregivers can reach out to, and we have recently hired on Dani. She is our caregiver relations director, and that is just purely her main role—building that relationship with caregivers so that they feel supported during the time that they are working with us, because it is so important.

It's one-on-one care. It's emotionally taxing to be a caregiver. You have to be very incredibly empathetic, incredibly patient, and if you don't have anything or anybody to fill your cup, it's going to be hard to fill your client's cup, which that's going to be an incredibly important thing. But it's kind of like on an airplane: put your mask on before you put your child's mask on. So you have to take care of yourself, and that is super important. I don't think that sometimes there is a huge emphasis on that. So I am really proud to have these resources for our caregivers at SHC so that they can feel supported.