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
Building Trust And Dignity In Home Care- Steve Whatley, HomeWell, Plano, TX
A single phone call can change everything. When a hospital discharge looms and panic sets in, the difference between chaos and calm is a voice that knows the path. We talk with Steve Whatley of Home Care Services in Plano, Texas, about turning personal experience into a stable, humane system that puts dignity and independence first. After seven years caring for his father, Steve and his wife Leslie built an approach that moves quickly when families are overwhelmed, yet never compromises on fit or respect.
We walk through the first moments that matter: how the team answers the phone, gathers only what’s essential, and calls back within an hour to schedule an in-home assessment. Leslie’s visit centers the client, not the clipboard. She asks what they need and what they want, preserving their voice in the plan. That small shift changes acceptance and adherence, especially when “caregiver” becomes “personal assistant.” Words signal power. When people feel in charge of their own days, they welcome help and stay safer longer at home.
Steve shares why hiring starts with personality and reliability before technical skills, and how matching an assistant to a client’s temperament prevents friction and builds trust. He explains why punctuality and transparency are nonnegotiable in a field where five minutes late can spark worry, and how being honest about timelines earns confidence. We also dig into the value of stories: the Navy pilot who casually mentioned 42 carrier landings, the elders who think they “just did life.” Asking opens doors. Those histories guide better care and remind families what they’re protecting.
If you’re navigating senior care, discharge planning, or searching for trusted home care in North Dallas, you’ll hear practical steps, language shifts that work, and a philosophy that admits families, not just clients. Press play, then subscribe, share with someone who needs it today, and leave a review to help more families find calm in a storm.
View More at HomeCareMarketingNews.com
My name is Steve Watley. I'm own home care services and we're located in Plano, Texas. So we serve North Dallas, far north Dallas, and the surrounding areas, like Plano and McKinney, Allen, Frisco, and those areas.
SPEAKER_01:And how long have you been in the business of home care with homework?
SPEAKER_00:We're closing in on our 10th year. We will start our 11th year in January.
SPEAKER_01:Wow. That is great. That means that you have been around the block for a long time and you're not going anywhere. You're not a brand new business and you've established yourselves. That's an achievement.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah. It's we think we've established ourselves more than once because sometimes it just feels okay. We've been there before, but it's all been good for the most part. I don't know what else I'd rather do. We got into this business every week after we took care of my dad for almost seven years. Wow. And he had a stroke in January of 2006. And within a within a couple of days, uh, we knew my wife and I knew that we were going to be his caregivers. And we were living in Ohio at the time, so we moved him from Louisiana to Ohio and he stayed with us until he passed away in 2012. But we felt like that both of us wanted to get out of the corporate race, and we felt like we had a story to tell that we could relate to people who assume the job of caring for a loved one. I think it's the hardest job anybody will take on, but it's also the most rewarding job. You'll never regret it. We were talking to a the son of a new client yesterday, and he's pretty stressed because he lost his mom in July, and is he's learning more about his dad firsthand and their finances and his care needs and things of that nature. And we were able to tell him, like we have hundreds of others, that we've been in your shoes, we know what it's like to get the phone call, to learn that your dad is in ICU with a stroke. And by the way, as I told him later, he didn't come with a book. And of course, he promptly told me I didn't either. But for the most part, it was you learn about not only their situation and their mindset as time goes on, how difficult it is to get old, but you also learn about the healthcare system. Yeah. And that it's not designed for patients, it's designed for the system itself. When somebody calls on a late Friday afternoon in a panicky voice, saying they're about to discharge my mother or mother-in-law from rehab, they say we need 24-7. And you can just feel the teneness and the strain and stress of their voice, they don't know what to do. And then we have the privilege of telling them that you called the right place, we've been where you've been, and we can take care of it. And uh man, what a great spot to be in to be able to, you can just feel the calmness settle down, knowing that they've connected with somebody who's been there. Because we don't believe in admitting clients, we admit we believe in admitting families, yeah, and we take care of everybody. We want that daughter to become daughter again, and the son to be son and spouse to become either the husband or the wife, because you know, when you start mixing up roles, that's when the stress is exacerbated. And but yeah, that's what led us here. With we got a picture of my dad and us hanging in our outer office, and without him and our experience with him, we probably wouldn't be doing this. But what a pleasure to do it, and what a these people, the people that we meet are just have incredible stories. And some of the older folks, especially the traditionalists, they think they just did life. They don't think that they did really anything special. And that, and we're talking about secret service agents that have taken care of presidential families. We're talking about World War II fighter plane pilots, nurses, Rosie the Riveter. These folks don't think anything of that.
SPEAKER_01:It was just what you did. You did what you were called to do, or you did what life brought to you.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, exactly.
SPEAKER_01:Made it work.
SPEAKER_00:Exactly. Yeah.
SPEAKER_01:I know that you I know that our seniors typically have some amazing stories that all of us can learn from about how to treat others, about how to take care of ourselves, how to take care of family, how to work hard.
SPEAKER_00:Valerie, one one story in particular, I was sitting down with a guy and I learned that he was a he said he flew planes for the Navy, right? And I said, That means you were a fighter pilot. And he's yeah. And I said, How many times did you land on an aircraft carrier? And he said, Oh, not that many. People did it a lot more than I did. I said, How many? And he said, 42 times. And I said, So you were up in the air and you were looking down on a ship that probably looked like the size of a postage stamp, and it was dancing in the water, and you had to land a plane on it. And he said, Yeah, and one of his daughters spoke up and said, Dad, I never knew that. Wow. He said, You never asked. So we encourage family members, caregivers, all of our staff, when you go and see a client, ask. They'll tell you, but you gotta ask. And I think his two daughters that were with us that day learned something. They probably got a lot more information about their dad than they knew for sure. And but man, rich lives, great accomplishments. And man, it you just sometimes you wonder, okay, why are we doing this? And then you have you sit down with somebody like that, and you're in the right spot.
SPEAKER_01:Yep. Tell us a little bit about the process. You've you obviously have some amazing conversations with these families, and you bring them a lot of peace of mind. But when somebody has never been in this position before and they call your office, how does it work? What happens from the minute they pick up the phone and call you all?
SPEAKER_00:Whoever answers the phone knows that how we answer the phone matters. And of course, we're home care services, so we say, home cares, my name is Steve. What can I do for you? And of course, sometimes we get some folks that are shaken and nervous and don't know what, don't know what where to go next, who to talk to. And I tell them that you call the right place. We've been where you've been, and we take minimal information because Leslie, my life and business partner, she does most of the assessments and admissions. And then I don't want them to have to tell their story more than once. And so I get basic information of who needs care and an idea of what care they might need. And then I take that information. We have an inquiry and application form, it's very brief. And then I take that form, and or whoever answers the phone takes that form and passes it to Leslie. And she has a self-imposed deadline to call prospective clients back in less than an hour within an hour. And most of the time she's talking to them in 30 minutes. And our goal is to set a time to where we can conduct the assessment, have a conversation with them and family members, and work with them to decide what the best care solutions are. Sometimes people have an idea of, oh, especially the folks who are going to receive the care, I only need a couple hours here and there. But they learned that they may never admit it in some sense, but they learned that man, having some help around is not a bad thing.
SPEAKER_01:Nice.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah. Let's get used to it. And he was coming out of the hospital in rehab, and he wanted somebody for three weeks. So we sent Constance in for him. And Constance is a wonderful, loving, caring individual. And he fell in love with her, and he's been with us for months now. That three weeks has turned into several months.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah.
SPEAKER_00:Because having that added assistance and also sense of confidence that he can get out of his chair and move without the fear of falling. And he and Constance are buddies. And uh that's great. Boy, who wouldn't want a buddy? And just an added thing is we don't refer to our caregivers as caregivers, we call them personal assistants. That's nice. Because my dad, he didn't want a caregiver. But when I said, Dad, don't you wouldn't you like having an assistant around? He's yeah, I could get used to that. So that's why we took from daddy and I said, just look at them as an assistant. What do you need? You need to drive somewhere, you need to do this, that, and the other. I can be your assistant. And he would tell people that this is my assistant. And so we adopted that when we joined home. And nobody really wants to think about needing a caregiver or an aide.
SPEAKER_01:Heck, who wouldn't want a personal assistant to take them places and make them dinner?
SPEAKER_00:And yeah, exactly. Exactly.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, I think that's a great way to phrase the term caregiver for many seniors, having an assistant around the house, whether they're there for four hours a day, eight hours a day, or whatever, is a much easier uh transition or addition to their life than having a caregiver come in the house for sure.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, I just turned 70 last week. So I'm I've got I've got people casting bids on who can be my driver because I always wanted a driver when I turned 70.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah.
SPEAKER_00:I've gotten several folks call texting me now saying, okay, when are you going to pick the driver?
SPEAKER_01:Yeah.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah.
SPEAKER_01:We have a couple of we have a couple of home care agency owners who actually are when they're getting a little older and they are recipients of they're perfectly fine, but they need a little extra help around the house. And they are they their own caregivers actually come out and help them. But hey, I you know what? I'll take a driver in and an assistant right now.
SPEAKER_00:Oh, absolutely. My my oldest granddaughter.
SPEAKER_01:Anybody wants to drive me around? That's fine with me.
SPEAKER_00:So when folks call and then Leslie goes out and she meets them in person and gets more information and really gets the whole Yeah, she actually conducts the needs assessment and goes through and finds out what they need, and not only finds out what they need, but what they want. And there's a big difference in that. People probably are more likely to accept help from somebody they don't know if they feel like that they're steering the ship. And they may not be steering the ship totally, but they've got some input. I've been to the doctor with my dad years ago, and some of the doctors talked to me. But the doctors who were most effective with my dad talked to him and asked him the questions.
SPEAKER_01:Leslie goes out to the house and she meets the family and sits down and has a talk.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah. Yeah, and she she's she's a uh she's a little person in size, but she's her smile is bigger than she is, and she just walks in and everybody loves her and she loves on them, and she lets them know that we want to take great care of them, and our goal is to keep them as independent as we as long and in the home as long as possible. She talks directly to the client, and you know, sometimes you'll have the care the family members want to insert this, that, and the other, which is great, but we want to make sure the client feels like they're in charge and like they can they are the ones driving.
SPEAKER_01:Yes, that and not only is that respectful, and but it preserves their dignity and that they feel like they are still in charge and making decisions.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah. Well, we just we just brought on a couple here in the last few weeks that they had an independent client representative, and she had hired another company and she was trying to manage the care instead of letting the company do that, and she had the caregivers anytime the client wanted to do something, she had the caregiver call her. And it's like they live in independent living, but they wanted to go downstairs and visit some friends, and she said, No, they don't need to do that. And I told them that we're not gonna we're if they take us on, we're not gonna do that. That if Mike and Donna want to go downstairs and get a piece of pie and visit with friends, that's what they're gonna do. If they want to go outside and take a walk, that's what we're gonna do. This is not, they're not in prison. They are 86 and 83, respectively. And if they can't do what they want when they want to do it, at what age can they? We've got a client now that's 103, and she wants a bath every day at 330. Not 331, not 329 at 330.
SPEAKER_01:I think the most important thing now would be to if you can tell us what you look for in a caregiver when you hire them.
SPEAKER_00:Oh, first and foremost, is it may sound weird, but personality. And because if they could be the greatest skilled person around, but if they don't have enough personality, the type of personality that connects with people and makes the clients comfortable in conversation, in activities, and giving a bath or whatever assistance is needed, then it just simply won't work. And when and it's not that I'm we have some clients that are introverts, right? So if you send an extrovert in, it would they would be over that pretty fast, right? But we want them going in smiling with a caring attitude and treating them like they would treat their own parents, and then I think second to that is is and equal to that is reliability and skills, right? Because if you're not reliable, if you're gonna be late, our we have found that our clients worry about their caregiver if they're like five or six minutes late. They are afraid that something's happened to them. And we tell them, look, if you're gonna be late, sometimes you can't help it. We live in the Dallas Metroplex, it takes you half hour, 35 minutes to get anywhere. Sometimes it takes longer. Call us and let us know. Don't text us because we might miss it, but call us and let us know so we can let your client know. And so we want people who we could tell time by, but we also want folks who can go in and love on people and take great care of them and they feel very comfortable with them. Much like the relationship we have with Lisa, Lisa tells me what to do from my position in social media management because she knows. And I don't even question that. And that's what we would like our caregivers to do because one of our values is trust. And we're gonna trust the caregivers to know what they're doing, but we want that trust to to connect with the client where the client as soon as they can trust that caregiver. Because they're gonna have to do some, they do some tasks you'd rather not talk about sometimes. And they're gonna intimate, they've got those intimate moments when those things happen, and trust is the main thing. If our client doesn't trust you, then you know we we've got to do something different. But it's um sometimes it can be a challenge to to find those folks, but our challenge, Valerie, is not to get into the mode of just putting somebody, putting a body in a slot, right? We've got to, even if it takes us a little bit longer to start care with a client, we tell them we can't start until we get the right person. We can't just send people. And and I know sometimes that makes us a little nervous and all, but because they could always call somebody else. But I think sometimes when you have those conversations and you're transparent with the client, that yes, we can take care of you, but it might take us a couple of days to find somebody exactly for you. Or there may be times where we know the perfect person, they're available, we can get started tomorrow. But just be transparent with everybody.
SPEAKER_01:Yep. That that also helps with trust if you're transparent from the very beginning. You have done a wonderful job of telling us about your business, your mission, your compassion for these seniors. I appreciate you talking to us and sharing with everyone how amazing you guys are as a team, your whole office, you and Leslie, and how the Plano area is very lucky to have you.
SPEAKER_00:I appreciate that. We're lucky to have you guys too.
Podcasts we love
Check out these other fine podcasts recommended by us, not an algorithm.
