A MESSAGE FROM ROBERTA, OUR FOUNDER AND PRESIDENT:
Good caregivers care deeply. When you care deeply, caregiving can sometimes be emotionally taxing. You are not only offering physical help with household chores and such but many times, you are offering emotional support and encouragement to a population that is depressed, chronically ill, weak and tired. This can be exhausting! You may also be experiencing:
- The client’s adult children squabbling
- Negligence on the part of a client’s adult child
- Conflict between a client husband and wife
- Conflict between a client and adult child
- Your client asks you to do tasks way beyond your job description
- Death of a client
…and the list goes on. You are not alone. Getting together with other caregivers to share experiences has multiple benefits including learning from each other. There is emotional support available for you to speak, share and unload the heaviness of your heart in caregiving. Our hope is you will walk away feeling a little lighter and empowered with strategies for the next situation. We also hope you receive a genuine acknowledgement and thank you for the work you do and a reminder of the positive significance you have in the life of a client. The group is led by a professional counselor and meets for one hour quarterly. You are strongly encouraged to attend. Please call your office to find out more information.
Our Caregiver Support Group met on Sat, Oct 25 at our local Wilkens Farm. We encourage our caregivers to get together for a fun activity while meeting to discuss any challenges they may be having with their clients. It is an opportunity to leave with more tools in your toolbox to work more effectively with your clients. Also, we had two sets of caregivers who work for the same clients. The caregivers work for the client on different days, and the client has told one caregiver about the other. They were delighted to finally meet each other in person. A fun fall day was had by all with the highlight being the corn maze…we worked off our homemade donuts!
Our first quarterly CAREGIVER SUPPORT GROUP was held on Monday, April 10 in our office. Led by Rev. Bernice Hanemann with over 25 years pastoral/chaplain experience, five caregivers attended.
This first meeting’s focus was on losing a client through death. Death is draining; put it in its place; it’s a long journey; run the marathon and consider the following:
- Help your client cross over. You can’t save them but you can help them on their way to their eternal home.
- Bring solace to the family and client.
- You don’t have to approach religiously, but you can sing or read to your client, rub their back or hold their hand.
- Pray for them silently.
When you become close to a client, it is difficult for you as well because you have invested your time and emotions in that person and when they expire, you feel the loss. To help with your healing process:
- Prepare yourself and the client during the process
- Go to the viewing or funeral
- Send a card to the family
- Some caregivers meditate
- Know that you have done an excellent job and know that God is pleased how you cared for your client and He’ll give you another one to love. These are His children you are caring for and you must do your best.
- Take the good experiences that you have learned from your last client and embrace it with the new one.
You, as a caregiver, are a special person chosen by God to help your client. Ask for strength in your personal life and in the job He has assigned for you to do.
Suggested Reading – The Applause of Heaven by Max Lucado