Companionship Care for Elderly Parents in Carlsbad: The Caregivers Must Be Screened

The home care industry, which provides companionship for elderly adults in Carlsbad and across the nation, is not quite as uniform and regulated as we would wish. While home care agencies provide important services, which will be in even more demand during the coming years, they can put seniors in danger if they fail to follow standards that are routine in most other fields.

Over the next six articles, we will focus on the home care industry and its practices.  The goal of the series will be to educate readers on what to look for, and what to look out for, when considering home care agencies for their elderly loved ones.

This article in the series focuses on the importance of screening workers before placing them in the homes of clients.

Types of Screening

You can’t take anything for granted when hiring someone to work closely with vulnerable seniors. Criminal background checks and drug tests are not embarrassing requirements that insult applicants; rather, they are important tools that help agencies know just whom they are hiring. Someone who truly is interested in giving excellent care and companionship for the elderly in Carlsbad will not hesitate to take a drug test and submit to a background check.

About half the states in the country require non-medical home care companies to be licensed.  In most of those states, background checks for caregivers are required.  Unfortunately, California provides no such consumer protection, largely due to politics.

Dangers of Failing to Screen

One of the biggest problems with the home care industry is the tendency of some agencies to hire caregivers with very little screening . Clients trust the agencies to provide trustworthy workers, but many times the agencies themselves don’t even really know whether their workers are trustworthy or not! There are an unfortunately large number of stories that illustrate the kinds of abuse that happen when convicted criminals and drug users enter the homes of seniors under the name of a home care agency.

Ask Questions!

As a family member arranging companionship for elderly parents in Carlsbad, you should feel at liberty to ask questions about an agency’s screening policies. If a company makes you feel intimidated or unwilling to answer any questions you have, that is an indication that it doesn’t have your family’s best interests as its first priority. A criminal background check and a drug test are absolute minimums in hiring a caregiver, and you should insist on them.

Originally posted 2012-07-23 14:30:26.