Building & Maintaining Your Client Caregiver Relationship

Your caregiver plays a vital role in providing a safe and healthy environment for you/your loved one. With that in mind, it important that not only the client gets on well with their caregiver but the family too.  There are many ways that you can build that relationship with the caregiver and ensure that it is maintained for as long as they are providing care.

Communication

The majority of breakdowns in relationships between caregivers and clients is mainly due to misunderstandings and lack of communication.  It’s essential that you are upfront with your caregiver and that all care requirements are communicated to the caregiver by the client/family from the very beginning.   Especially at the start, direction should be given to the caregiver in terms of the tasks required and how they are to be performed. 

 There should be an openness present in your conversations with the caregiver to ensure that they can ask questions about the care requirements.  As we know, when it comes to care, there really are no two days that are the same and you should expect that the caregiver may not be clear on certain tasks or they would like to run certain things past you regarding the tasks being performed.  Caregivers asking questions ensures that they will be able to provide the necessary care to the client without any confusion.   Making yourself approachable and being able to listen will encourage the caregiver to communicate openly and clearly with you.   This way all parties will be on the same page. 

Trust

For many families that are new to needing a caregiver, it can make them feel quite vulnerable.  Sometimes vulnerability can transpire into micromanaging which can cause a lot of stress for caregivers, causing them to leave their position.  

It is important to remember that you have hired a professional caregiver who has successfully completed their training and more than likely has a number of years of caregiving experience under their belt. You were part of the recruitment process with this caregiver and you believed that they had what it takes to care for you or your loved one. 

If you fail to trust them, your loved one will also have great difficulty trusting them either. 

Once you have provided the carer with the care requirements and tasks involved, you should step back, take a deep breath and trust that the caregiver will provide the highest quality of care that is possible. 

Patience

A skill that all caregivers must have is patience.  They have to be understanding to their elderly clients needs and understand that not every client is going to be open to having assistance with their daily tasks.  However, clients also need to have patience with their caregivers too. 

What worked for you might not work for them. Families can sometimes be frustrated that the caregiver is not doing a certain task in a particular way that they used to do it.  However, they may have found an alternative way of carrying out that task that equally works well for their client.  So long as the client is happy and safe, that should be the main priority. 

Checking-in

The role of a caregiver can be quite an isolating one.  Especially for caregivers who are living-in.  It would be beneficial to have regular check-in’s with the carer to see how everything is going and how they are doing.  You can ask them if they have any concerns or schedule a time to sit down and discuss any concerns they might have. 

Sometimes carers can store things inside themselves and continue working but unfortunately this is where things can crumble quite quickly.  By giving the caregiver time to be upfront about any concerns or issues, it means that they can be rectified early on.

If you have found that there is a breakdown in the caregiver client relationship, you should contact us as we can assist to mediate. 

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