Those who have never provided in-home care might think the work is simple. However, those with experience as a caregiver would beg to differ. Providing a high level of understanding and compassionate care can be taxing.
Unfortunately, many caregivers battle with burnout. Caring for someone else can be so consuming that you forget to attend to your own needs. That’s why many full-time caregivers turn to Home Insite for respite care and other services.
Our staff is not immune to burnout either. We take a variety of steps to help reduce the workload and give adequate time for rest and self-care. The health and wellness of our staff are just as important as our clients!
What do we do to battle burnout? Take a look.
Encourage Personal Time
The greatest difficulty with caregiving is that it can be all-consuming. You care so much about your loved one or client that you focus on them all day, every day. This can lead to compassion fatigue and a lower level of care.
To prevent this, we strongly encourage our staff to request time off if they need it. We also work with scheduling if a concern is impacting an employee’s life outside of work. We want to make sure that our staff has adequate personal time so that while they are on the job, they offer the best care available.
Everyone needs a break. Our staff are encouraged to take them too!
Facilitate Meditation
Science shows that meditation has a host of benefits. It reduces stress, which is a significant advantage for any caregiver. When you’re stressed, you produce cortisol, which over time can produce harmful effects in your body. Meditation reduces this stress hormone and helps maintain health.
Meditation also helps you center your emotions and reduce anxiety, while also increasing your attention span. All of these things help you to not only be better as a caregiver but also provides balance in your personal life.
Because of the many benefits of meditation, we offer mindfulness and meditation practices. There’s even a meditation room in the office that is available to all staff. If you need a peaceful getaway, it’s there for you!
Provide One-on-One Care
Caregivers have a lot of stress when it comes to helping one client, but in some facilities a caregiver is expected to help several clients at once throughout the day. This adds to the stress and hastens problems with burnout.
Because Home Insite provides one-on-one care, you’re in a less stressful situation and you’re able to focus your efforts on the needs of a single individual. We also work with clients to reduce resistance to care. With only one client, you have less to worry about, and the client gets better care. It’s a win-win!
Our Staff and Our Clients Deserve the Best
We focus on treating every client the way we wish to be treated – it’s the Golden Rule. However, we don’t only apply it to our clients. We also treat our staff that way. That’s why preventative care for burnout and stress is so important to us.
Our staff deserves the best, as do our clients. It’s how we run our business every day. Interested in learning more? Contact us today!
