Home Care Conversation
(for seniors & families)
Home Care Insight
(for those working with seniors & families)
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“There are many things that distinguish Family Resource Home Care from other home care agencies! Our culture, our staff, our caregivers, our owner and CEO. All of us put our employees and our clients first. We aim to please and to make sure they get what they want. We do this through our approach. We are kind, good listeners; we understand that everyone has a different story. We are flexible and accommodating. We make our clients and caregivers feel special and important, because they are.”
VP of Client Care
Sheila McKannay, MA, CMC, Vice President of Client Care
What I Do
Family Resource Home Care provides quality home care services to people in need. Not only do we provide an array of home and personal care services, we provide peace of mind, relief, respite, respect, dignity and friendship to our clients, their families, and our caregivers. My role is to make sure this happens! And my role is to ensure client and employee satisfaction, making this the best place to receive home care and the best place to work. I work to do this by making sure the client care supervising staff is empowered to do their job to the best of their ability because they believe in our company (our mission, our goals) and because they care.
Our culture is commitment and kindness, to focus on our customers, to give them what they want, to make sure they are happy. Our clients and our employees are our customers. We believe in building and maintaining long term relationships. We are a collaborative organization. We are relationship-based, we are team players. Each and every administrative staff person believes in what we do and how to do it. We all have a great respect for all people. We are all good listeners and we all provide support to each other and to our employees and to our clients.
Why Home Care
Because I have been doing it all my life! I come from a very large Irish Catholic family. My father’s mother died when he was 16 and as a result his five aunts and three uncles raised him. My great aunt Beck lived at my grandmother’s for many years. She was moved to a nursing home, the same nursing home as my paternal grandfather, Gene Papa. The nursing home was across the street from my grammar school. Several afternoons a week after school I would go over to St. Joseph’s and visit both my grandfather and my great aunt. My siblings and I had the run of the floor and were known by everyone. We knew all the residents, of course by our own nicknames. I was very comfortable with older folks and enjoyed being around them.
Now my very favorite person in the world was my maternal grandmother, Alma. Everyone called her Granny. She died at the age of 98. My grandmother had a beautiful home on top of Nob Hill in San Francisco, around the corner from the Hyde Street cable car. My siblings and I would take turns spending the night at my grandmother's. After college, when Gene Papa was dead and my grandmother moved into a retirement apartment, I was the only grandchild of eight to live in San Francisco. I visited my grandmother several times a week, dined with her in the fancy retirement dining room, arranged flowers as she looked on and directed me flower by flower, always offering her to do it herself, but she always declined. I visited her until the end, when she didn’t recognize me or my mother.
I became a Special Ed teacher and taught school for seven years. I moved to Seattle in 1988 and fell into elder care by accident. Initially I worked as the Program Director for an 86-bed intermediate care facility for the developmentally disabled aged 7-86 years of age. Even though I was the “boss” of the direct care and professional staff, I helped out on a very personal level. I changed many a diaper, helped with transfers, feeding, positioning, etc. I loved these folks and found a new respect for nursing homes and the people who worked in them. I had worked there for three years when the owner turned it into a skilled nursing facility and residents were moved to other living situations. At this time, I was hired by Ballard Community Hospital to start a private duty home care program to add to their home health and hospice services. Ballard Hospital merged with Swedish Health Services the following year. Lucky me to have the opportunity to develop home care services for this large hospital. I started the Home Helpers program and ran it for over eight years, before joining Family Resource Home Care in 2000.
My father and mother died in 2006 and 2007 respectively, when they were each just months shy of their 89th birthday. I use my parents as a gauge when I do assessments and care planning. My parents were alert, active, and independent, they did tai chi, read, watched education shows on TV, drove, had dinner parties, played bridge. The list goes on. When my father died, I was designated as the one to find home care for my mother. She really didn’t need help, but she decided not to drive any more and my brother insisted she have service three hours a day, five days a week. I researched home care agencies in the Bay Area, interviewed and hired one and was the contact between my mother, brother, and the home care team, although I live in Seattle.
When my mom became seriously ill, her home care increased until she had round-the-clock care. I visited her several times before she died and eventually canceled her home care to take care of her myself. It was very intimate experience. I was so very glad to have this time with my mother. I didn’t know she was going to die, so this time turned out to be invaluable.
When I speak with potential clients or do an intake, I realize I have been through this, all the steps this potential client or family member is about to go through. I have lived it. I know what they are feeling, their concern, worry, love. This experience has made me an even better advocate and more knowledgeable.
My Favorite Client Story
To pick just one favorite experience is impossible, but here is one. I am having lunch with a client and his wife. The client is unable to take food by mouth, yet his wife and I set a table at his bedside, eat sandwiches, and we all chat, mostly the client’s wife and me. My client cannot talk, but he hears and he uses a computer to tap out Morse code to be part of the conversation. He is happy and his wife is happy. At first I am uncomfortable, but quickly I am part of this unusual situation - unusual for me, not for them!
I learn the client had a stroke in 1986 at the age of 54. The stroke left him with a condition called locked-in syndrome. His beautiful wife remembers he knows Morse code and this opens up a whole new world for him. They move to Seattle to be near his daughter and her children. The grandkids climb up on his bed and hug him, tell him about their day, love him. I tell this love story because they are truly amazing people. It humbles me.
