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Saturday, June 6, 2015

Families: Why Consider A Professional Independant Caregiver

When the time comes to look for more help to care for your loved one, you as family members have two options:

  1. Hire a caregiver through an agency, or.
  2. Hire a Professional Independent Caregiver.

Our goal here is to help families see the value in hiring Professional Independent caregivers.

When you chose the later consider the following:

An Independent Caregiver will more times than not have a more vested interest in their business / career. It is their sole source of income for many and it is their business, they want it to succeed. How do they do so? By providing exceptional care for their clients. They depend on referrals  to keep them working. If their performance is poor they will have no referrals to keep them employed.


At PAL Caregivers we are building a resource spot for Independent Professional Caregivers to draw from. We will be providing links for them to help them boost their knowledge and share best practices with each other.

I have worked as an independent caregiver for sometime now and have observed caregivers who work for themselves and those who work through agencies. I believe that with the proper resources, independents are to a great extent the way to go.

Also consider this... When you hire through an agency your hourly rate will be 20-25 an hour with 9-10 going to the caregiver, not a living wage and barely more than a fast food worker. However if you hire an independent, you can pay them 15-16 an hour, feel good about that and at the same time get better care at a lower rate than the agency.

A good place to look for independents is at the website, Care.com. You can place an ad on that website and also see profiles of those you would like to interview.  When I decided to go back into caregiving I looked at the ads on this site and found a wonderful family to work for. When my client passed that family referred me to another family, so for me Care.com was a great resource. I am not sure of the rate to place an ad for help, but I think it is in the 35-40 dollar range and your ad is posted for a good length of time. This site also helps connect people who need nannies and pet sitters. Check it out, you may find that special someone who you've been looking for to care for your loved one.


A Professional Independent Caregiver
A Person You Can Know and Trust

Also consider that when you hire an independent, you have the same person all the time, or perhaps two individuals if extended hours are needed. That way the needs and personalities of both the caregiver and the person receiving care came become familiar. They begin to establish a relationship and that makes it so much easier on both parties. When you hire an agency they may say they will send the same person, however that is just not always true. They may try, however their turn over rate is high because of the low wages they pay so over the course of just a few months you may have dozens of different people in your house, people your loved ones don't know and you don't know.

I do think companies are a valuable resource for backup, vacation time and such so it would be good to establish a relationship with an agency for those needs. But think about an independent for the reasons I mentioned above. Also, on Care.com they have an application that allows you to pay your caregiver through them so taxes are taken out and all the obligations of both you and the caregiver are met.

It's a great way to go. Give it a try.


Until next time take care

Ruth Anne


 Important notice: PAL Caregivers.com - This website and its content is available solely for your information, interest and education. It is not affiliated in any way with any of the goods and service providers listed. We highly recommended that you interview and check references for any providers, goods or services. You should not rely upon this site as the sole basis for any decision or action you may take after reading one of our articles. We do not provide specific endorsements for other goods, sites or services.

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Please leave your comment, and Thank You.. Ruth Anne.