Tips for Hiring a Private Caregiver
1. Conduct an initial interview regardless of any previous relationship. In the case of our family, we have hired friends, acquaintances and referrals as caregivers. Here are sample questions for your interviewees:
- Do you have any previous caregiving experience?
- What is your job experience?
- Are you willing to learn? In our case it was often easier to go by personality and willingness to learn than previous experience. We trained the caregiving duties including transferring. This is a personal choice based on your needs and comfort level.
- Do you have a driver’s license and insurance? If hired, copy for your records. This is especially important if you need the caregiver to drive your loved one around.
- Do you smoke? If so, establish rules about where smoking is and isn’t allowed. This is especially important if your loved one is allergic to cigarette smoke.
- Have you taken any first aid training? Be sure to make clear your loved one’s desires. If an advance directive has been completed, review it with any caregivers and tell them where it is kept.
- Do you have any medical conditions that would prevent you from heavy lifting? This is important if your loved one has mobility issues and transferring is required and/or there is a need to lift a wheelchair to and from an automobile, just a few examples)
2. Request and check references. This is very important as this person will be in your home around medications, personal items such as jewelry, and cash, yet often will be unsupervised.
Checking references is easy; You may want to get permission to run a background check.
3. At the end of the interview it is helpful to give some examples of duties and ask if the candidate has any questions.
4. Have a contract signed by both you and the hired caregiver. This contract should specify work days, hours, clear job requirements and expectations, and other specifics you want to address, such as rules about smoking in the home, visitors, use of the phone, and meals. In addition, you may want to mention whether or not they are allowed to accept money or gifts of any kind from your loved one. Please see the link for a place to start and to view sample contracts. A contract can be as simple or as detailed as necessary for your family needs, based on assets and other personal concerns.
5. Meetings are a good way to keep open communication and maintain a business relationship. These meetings can be conducted weekly, monthly or quarterly and can be as formal or informal as you like. This is a good time to bring up both positive comments on performance as well as constructive criticism for areas where you want to see improvement. At times it may be necessary to have a stronger discussion where a written warning may be required.
6. Live-in caregiving can be an excellent solution to demanding caregiving needs, however this solution comes with its own set of unique challenges. It is important to do your research in this area.
