The introductions are over. The care assessment completed. The grand tour of the house is done. Now your new live in carer has offered you a cup of tea and the chance to have a chat and get to know each other – what do you do? What are you going to talk about? How can you be sure you’ll get along?
A lot of the matchmaking of finding a carer is undertaken by the live in care agency who create a profile for you, then compare it to their list of available carers. After all it’s not going to be a good relationship if your favourite hobby is flower arranging and they have severe pollen allergies!
Once they’ve moved in you need to take time to get to know each other. It’s going to be a lot easier to get to know your live-in carers, even if they have a complicated rota, than if you were introducing yourself to care home staff.
So start by accepting that cup of tea (or coffee, after all it’s your preferences that count), crack open the biscuits and get chatting.
Live-in Carers love to chat and get to know you and some things to chat about could include:
- Your memories – they love hearing about your reminiscences and probably adding in a few of their own!
- Family – especially if they can put names to the faces on your mantelpiece photographs or even meet some of them when they come to visit.
- The Royal Family
- The weather – well it’s always an easy thing to talk about.
- Travel – they love hearing about the exotic places you’ve visited. They might even be prepared to organise some days out to local attractions if you talk about some of the places you wish you could visit now.
- Food and drink – it helps them to understand what sort of meals you’ll enjoy.
- Classic musicals or musical films such as The Sound of Music – you can even watch it together if one of you can find a copy on DVD. TV series like “Dad’s Army” or “Great British Bake Off” are also good to put on to act as a starting point for conversation or you could watch some documentaries together such as “The Blue Planet”.
- Politics – if you’re sharing your home with your carer it’ll come up sooner or later.
- Your health – don’t feel you’re moaning if you complain about your aches and pains. Your carer is there to ensure that you’re well-looked after so they need to know what’s bothering you!
Doesn’t seem to be working out?
Give it a few weeks to allow your relationship with your carer to settle down, but if you really don’t seem to be getting on with them then speak to the agency. Although they try hard to match carers and clients sometimes you simply don’t click, in which case they can arrange for a different carer to take over.
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The introductions are over. The care assessment completed. The grand tour of the house is done. Now your new live in carer has offered you a cup of tea and the chance to have a chat and get to know each other – what do you do? What are you going to talk about? How can you be sure you’ll get along?
A lot of the matchmaking of finding a carer is undertaken by the live in care agency who create a profile for you, then compare it to their list of available carers. After all it’s not going to be a good relationship if your favourite hobby is flower arranging and they have severe pollen allergies!
Once they’ve moved in you need to take time to get to know each other. It’s going to be a lot easier to get to know your live-in carers, even if they have a complicated rota, than if you were introducing yourself to care home staff.
So start by accepting that cup of tea (or coffee, after all it’s your preferences that count), crack open the biscuits and get chatting.
Live-in Carers love to chat and get to know you and some things to chat about could include:
- Your memories – they love hearing about your reminiscences and probably adding in a few of their own!
- Family – especially if they can put names to the faces on your mantelpiece photographs or even meet some of them when they come to visit.
- The Royal Family
- The weather – well it’s always an easy thing to talk about.
- Travel – they love hearing about the exotic places you’ve visited. They might even be prepared to organise some days out to local attractions if you talk about some of the places you wish you could visit now.
- Food and drink – it helps them to understand what sort of meals you’ll enjoy.
- Classic musicals or musical films such as The Sound of Music – you can even watch it together if one of you can find a copy on DVD. TV series like “Dad’s Army” or “Great British Bake Off” are also good to put on to act as a starting point for conversation or you could watch some documentaries together such as “The Blue Planet”.
- Politics – if you’re sharing your home with your carer it’ll come up sooner or later.
- Your health – don’t feel you’re moaning if you complain about your aches and pains. Your carer is there to ensure that you’re well-looked after so they need to know what’s bothering you!
The introductions are over. The care assessment completed. The grand tour of the house is done. Now your new live in carer has offered you a cup of tea and the chance to have a chat and get to know each other – what do you do? What are you going to talk about? How can you be sure you’ll get along?
A lot of the matchmaking of finding a carer is undertaken by the live in care agency who create a profile for you, then compare it to their list of available carers. After all it’s not going to be a good relationship if your favourite hobby is flower arranging and they have severe pollen allergies!
Once they’ve moved in you need to take time to get to know each other. It’s going to be a lot easier to get to know your live-in carers, even if they have a complicated rota, than if you were introducing yourself to care home staff.
So start by accepting that cup of tea (or coffee, after all it’s your preferences that count), crack open the biscuits and get chatting.
