What home care agencies can suggest for clients between aide visits

Ask any home care agency coordinator what families call about after the first month, and you'll hear some version of the same thing. The aide is great. Dad is safe. But the afternoons are long, and he spends most of them in front of the TV.

Aide hours are built around what a client needs: help getting dressed, a meal, a shower, a safe walk to the mailbox. They are rarely built around what a client might want to learn. That isn't a failure of the agency. It's a different job. This post is for coordinators, client service managers and nurses at home care agencies who want something concrete to suggest for the hours in between.

The gap between aide visits

Picture a typical client with aide visits four mornings a week. The mornings are covered. Then the aide leaves at noon and the house goes quiet. Evenings are a phone call with a daughter in another state. Weekends are often emptier.

Families notice. They ask the agency to add hours, and sometimes that's the right answer. But often what they are really asking for is not more supervision. It's something to do. Something with a point to it. Something the person might actually look forward to.

Enrichment that is taught, not supervised

The idea here is simple. A local teacher comes to the house and teaches an activity. Not watching, not sitting with, teaching. There's a lesson plan, a skill, and progress you can see over the weeks.

Some examples of what that looks like in practice:

• Tech help. A client who wants to video call the grandkids, sort photos, or understand why the phone keeps asking for a password. One step at a time, with notes left behind. See our tech help page.
• Personal training. Strength, balance and mobility work with a trainer who adapts to what the client can do today. Not physical therapy, and not a replacement for a PT plan, but a good next chapter once PT ends. More on personal training.
• Board and card games. A real game of chess each week with someone who plays well, or a teacher who brings Mahjong or Canasta to a table the family sets up with four players.
• Cooking lessons. In the client's own kitchen, one recipe at a time, at a pace that works.
• Art, music, gardening, yoga. Watercolor at the kitchen table, piano that hasn't been played in years, a container garden on the porch, chair yoga before lunch.

How it fits alongside aide hours

A few ways agencies and families have arranged it:

Schedule lessons on non-aide days. If the aide comes Monday, Wednesday and Friday, a Tuesday art lesson gives the week another anchor point.

Schedule lessons right after an aide shift ends. The client is up, dressed and fed. The next hour has something in it.

Let the aide reinforce the lesson. If the trainer leaves three seated exercises, the aide can remind the client to do them. If the tech help teacher shows how to answer a video call, the aide can practice it once with them. This works best when the agency and the family agree on it ahead of time.

Keep the roles separate. The aide's job stays the same. The teacher isn't there to help with toileting or meds, and shouldn't be asked to. Being clear about that protects everyone, including the client.

On Home Happenings, families can book a single visit, four weeks at the same time, or every week until they cancel. Visits are 1, 1.5 or 2 hours. After each one, the pro writes a short note that the family can read, so a daughter in Ohio knows what her mother worked on this Tuesday.

Talking points for families

Coordinators often get asked "what else can we do?" on the phone, and it helps to have a few clear sentences ready.

• "Our aides help with daily needs. For something like piano lessons or learning the iPad, a teacher who comes to the house is a better fit."
• "Think of it as lessons, the same way you'd hire a tutor. It's an hour of learning something, not an hour of being looked after."
• "You can message the teacher first and book one visit to see how it goes. No long commitment."
• "You can book and pay from anywhere, and you'll get a note after each visit."
• "Pros set their own rate, between $50 and $150 an hour, and the profile shows it before you book."

And a couple of things not to say. Please don't describe an activity lesson as therapy, as a memory program, or as a way to prevent decline. It is none of those. What you can honestly say is that learning and moving and talking about real things tends to make a week feel better.

Questions agencies tend to ask us

Is this a competitor? No. We don't provide aides, personal assistance or anything like home care. Home Happenings pros teach one activity. Many of our families have an agency aide and a weekly lesson, and they work well together.

Who are the teachers? Local pros in Essex County: art teachers, musicians, trainers, yoga instructors, therapy dog teams, gardeners, people who play serious bridge. Every one is background checked and vetted by our team. Profiles show credentials, reviews and the towns each pro serves.

What if a client's needs change? Families can cancel free of charge up to 3 days before a visit. Between 3 days and 12 hours, half the visit is charged, and inside 12 hours the full price. For recurring bookings, they can stop at any time going forward.

Can we suggest it to clients in specific towns? Right now we serve 14 Essex County towns, including South Orange, Montclair, West Orange, Livingston and the Caldwells.

A starting point

If you have a client who would enjoy a weekly lesson, the easiest thing is to have the family look through in-home activities in their town and pick one or two pros to message. If your agency would like to talk through how this could sit alongside your services, our contact page is the best way to reach us.