Caring Shares Veteran Program on Good Things Utah

Welcome back to GTU! Taking care of our loved ones can be challenging. From personal care to transportation and meal prep. But there is a local company that can provide those services and so much more.

 

Joining us now is Brandy Andersen and Brandyn Simmons from Caring Senior Service. I love that you 2 wore your jammies. It's a cozy day on GTU. Brandyn, let's start with you. What do you do at Caring Senior Service?

 

We provide respite care, house cleaning, transportation services — all non-medical to complement medical, whether it's home health or hospice. We are just there to help the seniors age in place with dignity and in the comfort of their own homes. 

 

"Comfort of their own homes." That's a big one. I saw that with grandparents. That was a struggle. So, in the end, they want to stay in their own surroundings, in their own familiarity. Will you talk a little bit too about caretakers and why caretakers need this additional help?

 

Family caretakers? They need that additional support so they can actually be family. They slip into a role of caregiver, and they lose that time of bonding and those activities that they used to do with their loved ones because they are caring for them. And so the services we provide with our caregivers gives them that opportunity to be family — be a mother, be a father, son — whatever that role looks like. So it gives them that. 

 

Brandy, you mentioned some of the services, but I know that there are so many more things that you do. Can you tell us a couple of those?

 

As Brandyn mentioned, the personal care that we do. We do showering and those kinds of things. But we are also involved with a special program with the VA. And these are kind of untapped territory for services that have come to light. And so we are focusing on our veterans as well so they can get some in-home care. This is a wonderful program to be involved with.

 

Tell us a little more when it comes to what is available to veterans specifically. Do they know about these resources? Let's help spread the word. Tell them what they can offer. 

 

Yeah, I believe that there's about 11 million veterans that qualify for these services. But currently, there's about 600,000 that are using them. Mostly because they don't know. So, we have a non-profit that works with veterans to ensure that they get the care that they need through the VA. And we also interview them and then record their stories and catalog with the Library of Congress to preserve them. And that's called Generations: The Stories of Our Heroes.

 

Really? Is that happening with each veteran?

 

If they want to.

I think that it's important because it's an honor. I think they like to see their loved ones honored and remembered. For me, personally, my husband assed away was a 20-year veteran of the Army. And so this program is especially important to me on a personal level. I love for his story to be told. I love the fact that families can talk about their own personal heroes. To have a personal hero in your family is nothing short of a wonderful gift and an honor.

 

Well, I would say for one the actual care and compassion, which is sometimes an overused term, but it's real. And we also have technologies in place that will, let's say, the family caregiver that doesn't have eyes on mom 24/7, this technology — we're not monitoring, we aren't recording — but if something happens, it will notify them or us immediately. And we can share that data with not only the family but with referral partners, with home health, hospice, whoever they may be, to know that that patient or that client is getting the best care possible and staying safe.

 

www.caringseniorservice.com. Our office is the Wasatch office. And we are available 24 hours a day, 7 days a week.