Care Across America
"Care Across America, an Approved Senior Network® Podcast"—your go-to source for engaging conversations and practical insights from home care and senior care experts across the United States. Each episode will spotlight industry professionals, and their referral networks, sharing impactful stories, proven strategies, and innovative solutions in senior care. This podcast is perfect for professionals, adult children of aging parents, and family members struggling with senior care choices and care.
Care Across America
Enhancing Independence: A Caring Touch's Approach to Home Care
The journey of finding quality home care often begins with confusion and overwhelm. What services are available? How do you choose the right agency? In this enlightening conversation, Junie Baratti, COO of A Caring Touch Home Care, pulls back the curtain on what makes exceptional home care work.
Drawing from an impressive 40-year career in the industry, Barotti explains the comprehensive approach her agency takes across Southern California. Far beyond simply "sending someone to help," their process includes thorough assessments, personalized caregiver matching, and detailed home safety evaluations. The company's commitment shines through in their practices—like personally introducing caregivers to clients (even at 9 PM), conducting in-house training for all staff, and maintaining 24/7 communication systems to ensure continuous support.
Perhaps most striking is the philosophy that guides their care: "We're not there to take over any independence. We're there to enhance your independence and keep you home for as long as you want to be there." This respect extends to cultural sensitivity, with caregivers who speak multiple languages and honor household traditions. In diverse Southern California, this approach proves essential, especially for clients with dementia who may revert to their native language.
Listen as Barotti shares practical insights about what families should expect from quality home care and why being "the easiest company to work with" drives their approach to serving seniors. Whether you're currently searching for care options or planning for future needs, this conversation provides valuable guidance from one of the industry's most experienced voices.
View More at HomeCareMarketingNews.com
Hi, I'm Junie Barotti and I am COO here at A Caring Touch Home Care in San Diego, California. Great, we are pretty much all of Southern California at this time.
Speaker 2:Wow, and that's a lot. We're expanding. That's great, that's amazing. And so tell us about A Caring Touch Home Care, when it started started, or how long you've been in the business, a Caring Touch Home Care, started almost 12 years ago by Javier Herrera.
Speaker 1:He is our founder and he actually worked with me when he's quite a bit younger than me about 16 years, I believe. He started with me. I met him at another company he was our medical translator and I was the national sales director and he somehow saw my what do you call it? My resume up online. I didn't know, it was still floating around out there and he noticed the same place that we used to work at. Rxpain Management gave me a call and from there it's been over three years I've been here at A Caring Touch Home Care.
Speaker 2:That's awesome, and you said to me earlier that you've been in home care for 40 years. Yes, ma'am, oh my goodness. So tell us what you do right now for A Caring Touch Home Care. What's your role there as COO? I know you wear a lot of hats, but what do you? I do.
Speaker 1:Yes, I wear every hat Pretty much right now. I'm growing contracts, I'm redoing retention. That seems to be when I first got here. I was pretty much tap dancing and I was the whole show. I was hiring, I was doing the compliance, I was scheduling, I was doing everything when I first came to A Caring Touch Home Care. Since then we have completely grown this company out and now I'm pretty much growing and maintaining relationships.
Speaker 2:That's great, that's awesome. And when people call A Caring Touchouch home care, when they find you, when they're referred to you, what can they expect? What happens? Sort of the process of people are overwhelmed, they don't know what they need, they don't know what they want.
Speaker 1:They don't because usually when they call they should have already had home care in place. A lot of times people are very resistant to home care. I get it. My mom needs home care and she's now. She now likes it, she now likes the caregiver and all that. But it just took a little bit.
Speaker 1:But when they first call in, we're going to process, we're going to find out what area they're in. We're going to find out what the needs are. We also a lot of times have to differentiate. Let them know that we're not home health, we're home care. That's always a learning process for people what we can do. And if there's things we can't do like maybe we can't cut toenails but we can file there's always a workaround, right.
Speaker 1:So once they call in, we come out and we do an assessment, whether you're at the hospital, at your rehab or at home. We then find out as much information as we can about you so we can make a good fit for a caregiver. And all of our caregivers are licensed, bonded, insured. We're a real home care organization, so we're an HCO here in the state of California. We have to be compliant with the state comes out yearly and make sure that all of our background checks, all of our training, tb, all that sort of thing is in place. But when we get out to the home or the hospital, whatever it may be, we gather the information, we come back, we debrief our scheduling department, we debrief the client care coordinators.
Speaker 1:So the very first day, the start of care, we also do a home safety check in the house. We make sure that they have everything they need in the bathroom. We can make suggestions, we can show them on Amazon maybe some products they might need to make the home a little safer for them. And then we have the very first day, like tonight, I'm going out nine o'clock at night to do a start of care and make sure the caregiver understands their duties, make sure the client is comfortable with the caregiver. This is like we have sundowners at nighttime. A lot of our people have that going on with them and we want to make sure we make a good fit and no matter what the need might be whether you just need a shower, a standby, assist at the shower that seems to be something that's very prevalent with seniors. They're afraid in the bathroom and so we're there to help, whether it's toileting, showering if you're bed bound, bed baths, diapering, all that sort of thing.
Speaker 2:Yeah, as I talk to folks in home care like you, and especially those who've been doing this a long time, it's not just when you say, oh, it's home care, it's not just sending somebody out to the house to help. There are a thousand other things that go along with that and what you just said a home safety assessment, recommending products, making sure the person is safe in their home. They have everything they need. Really finding out the story, it's a lot of care management. It almost always is, and while you're, everybody says home care, but really a good home care agency with a really stellar set of leadership like you, this is a whole. It's bigger than just sending an aide out to the house or a caregiver out to the house. It's all about the safety of the client and things they just would never think of. People haven't been in this position before a lot of times.
Speaker 1:They don't know what to expect from the home care aid. It's like you said, it's not just sending somebody out there. Every household we go into is different. Some have dogs, some have cats we have to make a match there. Some don't want us to wear shoes. So we're always respectful of whatever their traditions or whatever we're walking into, because we're there to enhance. We're not there to take over any independence. We're there to enhance. We're not there to take over any independence. We're there to enhance your independence and keep you home for as long as you want to be there. And so just every situation is different. And so it's reading the room, reading the person and getting that caregiver to. Also. They also have to switch from household to household. It's not just telling them they're going into some households where the person may have dementia, and then the next household the person's. Just it's a physical, not their mind is they can remember, but maybe they just need assistance all the time, a standby assist. So every household's different.
Speaker 2:Yeah, absolutely. And you mentioned that you're going out at nine o'clock at night to do a start of care. So that tells me that you guys do, and maybe it's mandatory all over, but not every home care agency does that. So you getting back in the car at nine o'clock, that's my bedtime, that's mine too, but that's great, that's wonderful that you're there to make those introductions. They already have talked to you, probably, or at least know who you are, and that's a wonderful thing to do.
Speaker 1:This family is coming from out of state and I am training somebody new in and they're just going to shout at me and see what I do. But definitely we want to see where everything's at. And I haven't met them yet because they're coming from out of state, but I've been talking to them over the phone. So I will get there an hour earlier just to talk with them and then the caregiver will arrive at nine o'clock and I'll do the start of care at that time to kind of show them around.
Speaker 1:Yeah, that's great yeah.
Speaker 2:Start of care. We're out there for sure. I think that's important because it's hard to not know who's going to arrive at the door and then it's a little awkward. People haven't met each other. Some caregivers, I'm sure, are great at it and can introduce themselves and take care of the whole thing and they get it. But there's a lot of times when folks need a little extra introduction time and maybe the caregiver's new, like you said, and they may not know exactly what questions to ask.
Speaker 1:So I think that's wonderful that you guys do that and what I like is I like every client care coordinator it's always not the same one because different people are on call but I do like the ones who connect the most to try to do as much of their own starts of care, since they're already that trusted face for that person, for that client. I should say.
Speaker 2:Yeah, absolutely, and I imagine you also touched on cultural differences. So being respectful of people's wishes when you walk in the door and, of course, san Diego and Southern California is a melting pod of culture, huge melting pod, yeah, so you guys get to see all kinds of different cultures and have become aware of, you know, the potential requests of certain cultures. And that's amazing too, because I know that caregivers and I'm sure that you being there or someone else being there for start of care is great, because they may not have experienced that culture yet or been in a house like that. Taking the shoes off is a great example.
Speaker 1:A lot of folks asking where you would like them. Where can I sit, when do I put my belongings Not assuming anything, teaching them how we be respectful, and that's all done in our orientation here and because we do hands-on training here at the office, oh great. So our recruiters if I do have somebody who is Russian speaking, I'll ask the recruiters to look out for someone Russian speaking. If we need Farsi speakers, my recruiting team will look for Farsi speakers. We do have that population within our ranks of caregivers speakers. If we don't, we do have that population within our ranks of caregivers. However, sometimes we may need they will look. If sometimes some people prefer Tagalog speakers, they love it. Not that we, if that's what they understand best, of course we're going to try to keep that, but for sure we're always looking for that diverse population to serve either diverse senior population.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I mean we've had, I know, over the over time we've run ads for different home care agencies that are looking for Vietnamese speaking and everything you can imagine out there, and you find too, that when people have dementia and as they become hard of hearing, it is.
Speaker 1:But when people have dementia and as they become hard of hearing it is, it's. We try to as best we can not that it always happens, but we try the best we can to keep that so they can communicate. Yeah, so they can communicate.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it's scary when you know somebody's in your house and they don't speak the same language as you at all. Just a little bit it can get you through. But yeah, that's scary for someone, especially if they have dementia and a person caring for them has no idea what's going on. Yeah, that's great.
Speaker 1:It sounds to me like the experience that you bring to the table and your founder brings to the table makes for an excellent agency that serves your population. So we have so many great people here. Our schedulers, you know, they're wonderful. Our recruiting our client care coordinators that are out in the field right now doing pop-ins checking to see how the clients are doing with their caregivers yeah, they're all passionate about what they do. I think they can't help but catch a little from me. They're very passionate about serving our elder community here.
Speaker 2:And you mentioned that you do training in-house, so does everybody come in for orientation and training? How?
Speaker 1:to wash your hands correctly, how to put gloves on, take gloves off correctly, yeah, and then they're taught how to redirect with dementia, all of that in the training. So everybody does come in-house, which is nice because scheduling gets to see their, of course, their faces on our what we use our scheduling, yeah, so they get to see them there. But it's really nice that they come into the scheduling department after they go through orientation so they can sit down with scheduling and they can get a little more on other than what recruiting puts in.
Speaker 2:That's definitely a plus to get to know, put names and faces together, because you don't see each other that often. People are very independent and they're out on their own doing their thing and it's hard to gather everybody back in.
Speaker 1:We have apps where I can see every single text that comes in. We can all see the text messages. We can see the phone calls we're truly a 24-hour, seven-day-a-week company so I can see everything that comes in at nighttime. I can see virtually a 24-hour, seven-day-a-week company, so I can see everything that comes in at nighttime. I can see the text messaging. We can see everything, so the caregivers can always communicate with us if they need help, if they're out in the field, whatever's going on, and there's always someone on call at night, like on the weekends.
Speaker 2:That's wonderful. Sounds like you guys have Southern California taken care of. It'd take a large army to take care of all of Southern California's needs, but it sounds like you guys have really got it together and really experienced leadership. It starts there. It really does start there.
Speaker 1:It's a vision and I've learned so much over my years. Every company I've been at is and I've learned so much over my years, every company I've been at, every place I've been what I like to take from that company and what I've learned from that company and just make it better or make it ours, yeah, yeah it really counts for a lot.
Speaker 2:You know a lot of experience, right, you know what you want to see and you know how. You know what you want your reputation to be, which is good, of course but you've been around the block long enough to know how to get there and make sure that things are gonna. They don't run smooth every day, I know that they don't, but you in the end, I want to be the easiest company to work with.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I want to be easy to work with the referral sources, with the, with their adult children, if there's anything. Oh, can you take my mom here? It's a little bit like it's an orange. We're in San Diego and they live in San Diego. Yeah, we can do that. It's always. We try to be as easy to work as possible.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:And that's the goal. The goal is to be easy to make their life possible. Yeah, and that's the goal. The goal is to be easy to make them feel comforted.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and being easy to work with means excellent customer service, so people are always looking for. We all can complain about customer service in one way or another, about different things in our lives. So being easy to work with means great customer service and flexibility and being willing to work around things, like you said earlier. So that's wonderful. I love an easy company to work with, don't we all?
Speaker 1:If you can return easy, by all means, that makes an easy company. Let's just be the easiest company, as easy as we can here in San Diego. Let's just make it really easy for people to reach out to us and put this together for them and just be flexible. As that person either gets better or declines, let's just keep rolling with it and let's just be there and hold that space and just be there for them.
Speaker 2:That's great. Thank you for talking with me and giving me all the scoop about CaringTouch Home Care, because we need to get the word out more about all of our home care agencies, and having a great one in Southern California is really it's my pleasure to talk to you, so thank you so much. My pleasure to talk to you too, valerie.
