Good Neighbor Podcast Estero
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Local Businesses & Your Neighbors in SWFL
Good Neighbor Podcast Estero
EP # 225 Kevin Walters' Story: Impacting Lives in Home Care
Ever wondered how private duty home care services can profoundly change the lives of seniors and their families? Kevin Walters from HomeWell Care Services joins us to share his heartfelt journey into the home care industry, driven by the personal experiences of his grandmothers battling Alzheimer's and Parkinson's. Discover the crucial support provided by caregivers in daily tasks like grooming, meal preparation, and companionship, and learn about the limitations of insurance coverage in this essential service. Kevin opens up about the evolving landscape of home care and the hurdles faced by caregivers and clients alike, especially during challenging times such as Hurricane Ian's impact on Southwest Florida.
Connect with us as we tackle the broader issues faced by the home care sector amidst the COVID-19 pandemic's complexities. Kevin dives into the misconceptions surrounding home care, highlighting the indispensable, long-term role of caregivers compared to temporary service providers. Explore current trends affecting home care, from housing affordability to potential government funding impacts. As our conversation unfolds, we express our gratitude to our listeners for their ongoing support and encourage you to nominate local businesses to showcase the vibrant Estero community. Join us for an episode filled with insights, appreciation, and a deeper understanding of the home care industry's invaluable contributions.
HomeWell Care Services (Fort Myers, FL)
Kevin Walters
13100 Westlinks Terrace Unit 13
Fort Myers, FL 33913
239-427-0416
kwalters@homewellcares.com
homewellcares.com
This is the.
Speaker 2:Good Neighbor.
Speaker 1:Podcast, the place where local businesses and neighbors come together. Here's your host, Cabo Jim.
Speaker 3:Schaller. Welcome Good Neighbors to episode number 225 of the Good Neighbor Podcast. Today we have Good Neighbor Kevin Walters from HomeWell Care Services. Welcome.
Speaker 2:Thank you. Thank you, cabo, jim, good to meet you, good to see you.
Speaker 3:Absolutely Pleasure to have you on the show today and share your story with our community. So without further ado, let's jump right in. And why don't you share a little bit about what you do over at Home? Well Care Services.
Speaker 2:So Home Well Care Services is a private duty home care agency. So there's a few pieces in what I just said briefly summarized. So we provide care in the home wherever people call home. So that means the care that we provide, which is anywhere from helping people get going in the morning, thinking chronologically how people you know function in their day-to-day life, help them get going in the morning, help them get out of bed, transfers, shower, bathing, grooming, dressing, all the way into meal prep, will help them with light housekeeping along with, you know, companionship.
Speaker 2:I mean the people have to get along. I mean I think that's something that we provide. Well, our caregivers have to speak pretty clearly and clear. English is one of our requirements, and that goes into one of the misconceptions too. But there are a lot of caregivers out there that really have the heart that we have too in providing that level of care. And then, yeah, we are private duty, so that means we're private pay. Unfortunately, medicare, medicaid, are not options with us, but if people have a long term care insurance policy, we definitely can work with that.
Speaker 3:So very good. Well, let's back up your story a little bit. How did you get involved in this industry?
Speaker 2:Oh, that's an interesting question. So I ended my run I was already kind of in the healthcare industry before I arrived here in my career and I did a little self-discovery after I left my last position and I found that a lot of my passion was focused more on helping people. And then how can I help people on a local level? Well, both of my grandmothers one had Alzheimer's dementia and passed away in 2016. One had Parkinson's and had a little dementia and was debilitated due to that and she passed away in 2005. You know, it had me thinking what options were available for their care. Well, luckily, my grandmother that passed away in 2016, she had some options, but my grandmother that passed away in 2005, they just didn't exist at that time. So this industry really has blossomed from that need and having in-home care, because there's just not enough, I think, quality care options out there. So that's what led me down this path to just helping people, helping our seniors, and especially here in Southwest Florida.
Speaker 3:Right, right, and I'm from the Midwest originally. I'm the same thing. My grandmother went through that whole thing and it was all thrown back on the family. It was my grandfather, my aunts and uncles and everybody kind of chipping in and it was you know they didn't have the resources that you have today in the service. So let's talk about challenges along your journey, whether personally, professionally. But we've all been through some type of obstacle through our journey that we get to today and we look back and, you know, not necessarily glad we went through it, but we made it through it and we're in a better place now because of it. Is there something that happened along your journey?
Speaker 2:Well, you know, I mean, we all experienced this in Southwest Florida, so what I'm going to say is not anything new to people that have lived through it, but Hurricane Ian was a real. There are two parts, I would say I'm going to start with Hurricane Ian, which was closer in time, but that really impacted people, and not just. I think what people think about is, oh, we had less people coming down here. I will say this Most of the people that I help are already here. They're here usually year round, or mostly year round. So from that perspective, it's not so much. What it impacted was a lot of people evacuated and never came back, or they, you know, are still their houses. If you go through Cape Coral and such, you can see it still there's a lot of blue roofs out there. But it really impacted people on that basic level and that really does roll downstream to services that we're providing, displacing caregivers and the people that we serve.
Speaker 2:And if I go back even further, you can probably guess the second item, which is COVID. So when I started down my journey, I had put in all my paperwork, started the process and then, all of a sudden, covid just almost came out of nowhere from my perspective, because I was already down the garden path. You know, you're kind of like hey, what do I do? Do I start? Do I hold back? And really I started so out of the goodness of trying to help people and it was really tough.
Speaker 2:I'm I can't say I'm newer to the area. I had moved down here in May of 2019. Parents have been coming down here since 2004 and lived down here since then. So I'm very familiar with the area, having come, visited them many times. But you know, I wasn't, you know, a known commodity when it started. So it was very marketing with a mask on, and those of you on the podcast listening are not going to see my face picture picture going out in public and trying to meet people with that mask on for the very first time. This is a trust that we establish with people and I think you understand that. I think the people that are listening understand hey, I want to trust who's going to come into my home and help me out, and that's something that we really work hard to establish and that trust takes a while to build up too.
Speaker 3:So Absolutely, and it's important. You know you're opening your door to somebody, so you want to make sure you trust them. It's somebody you're inviting to your home. They almost, in a sense, become family in time. Correct? Let's clear up any kind of maybe myths or misconceptions surrounding what you do within the home care industry.
Speaker 2:That's a fair question. A few things that I think are misconceptions are is that you know we're there with anything but good intentions. I feel like one of the things you know, one of the things that I talk about with people who have never had home care before, or if they have, is we're not the person that is going to repair your refrigerator and leave, or we're not the person there. We're there for the longer haul. If that's two weeks while you're rehabbing and getting better from surgery. Six weeks if you had a knee replacement or shoulder you have hip, or if it's a longer term situation where somebody has dementia, somebody is just physically going downhill, we're there to help you and we're gonna work hard to make sure that communication is good.
Speaker 2:I feel like sometimes, though, I would say, misconceptions also lead into what our capabilities are, and I always work to say, hey, if we don't do something, we know somebody who does that. So a lot of times people will ask me well, do you send nurses out? And I said no, we are caregiving staff. You know CNAs and home health aides. We're providing that level of service in the home. We do have registered DERSs on staff that help the supervised, build care plans, assess and do our training. So I feel like getting people to understand kind of level of service, who's doing the services. Those can be misconceptions, but also imagine what it's like having somebody in your home. But also they're going to be a little more transparent from an impact perspective. They're there to be supportive.
Speaker 3:Absolutely, absolutely. So, talking about the industry and how it's evolved and changed over the years, do you notice anything trending lately?
Speaker 2:trending lately? Do I notice anything trending? Well, I do see, with laws and what's happening with you know changes, you know with our elected officials, sometimes we see focus areas of you know different levels of I think. I think what I'm what I'm getting to is the perspective of who's moving down here, why they're coming down here, their level of ability to invest. I think one of the trends that I feel like I'm seeing that's related to that is how does housing impact the overall state of how we're helping people Understanding, hey, there's a lot of people coming down here.
Speaker 2:There's a lot of focus on getting people down here. What about the people that are already here? You know, we need to make sure that they're taken care of. We need to make sure that we have enough places for our caregivers to live, work. How are they going to operate? I think the focus on affordability that's starting to come is a positive thing, so I think that's going to really impact us. I'll be curious to see one of the trends that could be coming or not coming is you know, what's the impact of government going to be on? If we're going to see additional funding from maybe Medicare or other sources that help to reinforce what people can afford and what people can do.
Speaker 3:Yeah, because this issue continues to get I would say get bigger, but it's growing every year. I mean more and more people need that help and support and they don't have the resources all the time to be able to afford that. So you're not from Southwest Florida originally. You said you moved down here in 2019. Where are you from originally?
Speaker 2:Yeah, so I'm originally from Ohio. So you know I always tell people don't shoot me, I'm from Ohio. But, yes, go Buckeyes. But I actually graduated from the University of Toledo, so go Rockets. And I'm from the Cleveland area originally. So you know I'm used to not having great teams, so let me have one. But no, I mean so I'm from the cold area. I find it interesting and I don't know if you all find this and your listeners if you're local or if you're transplants like myself, or if you're seasonal. One of the things that I find interesting is a lot of the native Floridians are like oh, I want to move up north, I want to be in the snow and I'm just like you should go up and visit you know more than just for a weekend or a week or something like that, and live it for, you know, do the reverse seasonal and go up there from, you know, january through March and see what it's like.
Speaker 2:I think it's eye opening, just like us. Being down here during the summer for the first time is eye-opening too, so it's a little extreme.
Speaker 3:It is my daughter. I have my daughter. She was born and raised down here. Same thing I want to go up north. I want to move up north. She lasted one winter up north and moved right back and said yeah, that's not for me.
Speaker 2:It's real. I tried to tell people, so go out there and give it a try, but there's less traffic.
Speaker 1:You're not going to like that.
Speaker 3:You're not going to like that. So I know what you do is very demanding of your time, but when you do get a moment of free time, what do you enjoy doing outside of work?
Speaker 2:Oh, I you know one of the things I enjoy about being down here in Southwest Florida, so my son and I and my wife, we'd like to go kayaking, so we have our own kayaks, my wife has a standup paddleboard and we hit, you know, various locations here the beaches to some of the inland rivers the Stair River is really pretty and it's just gorgeous Up at Manatee Park.
Speaker 2:Around there I've done kayaking underneath that 75 bridge before with my son and we had a great time. But you know we do that. We try to get out. It's really relaxing. People are like, aren't the gators going to get at you? And everybody asks me about the alligators. And you know how many alligators I've seen while I've been kayaking? Probably under five because they just they don't want any part of the diet.
Speaker 3:You don't bother them, they don't bother you. It's simple as that.
Speaker 2:So you get it, and I think you know, for those of you listening, you know, go on a tour, give it a try, it's not unsafe.
Speaker 3:That's why we live down here to be, outside and enjoy the outdoors Absolutely Beautiful. So is there one thing you wish our listeners knew about what you do that maybe they wouldn't be so aware of?
Speaker 2:You know, I would say one thing that I wish our listeners just you know, I think getting people to talk about what's going on in their lives. Once you get people talking, it's like a waterfall. It just comes out and you get to really help them and dig in, but not being afraid to have that conversation with people, with people like me. If you choose another agency, great, but talk to somebody, really spend. You know, think about you know, hey, how can they help me? Don't overthink it, though. Be ready to share, because that's going to enable you to get the help you need to share because that's going to enable you to get the help you need. Or, if you're looking for help for somebody else, it's going to help you get, I think, that information you need to help drive a better decision, and I think there's just a general fear factor and apprehension, you know, that I sense from people.
Speaker 3:It's. You know, I think it's that old adage. You know, I think our grandparents and our parents went through it. They never wanted to go to the doctor.
Speaker 2:That's exactly it. We're not. I'm not going to criticize somebody. If I see somebody furniture surfing, as I call it, I'm going to call it out, but in a good way, and say you know we want to, what we want to do. Our goal is to prevent hospitalizations. That is our goal. Keep people safe in their home, wherever they call home. If that's assisted living, memory care, if it's in a independent living environment they live in apartment, condo, single family home. We're here to help you and I think keeping people out of the hospital, out of rehabs, that's our goal. Because did you move down here to Florida to be in a rehab or be behind, you know, be within four walls?
Speaker 3:No, absolutely not. So, speaking about that, how would our listeners go about contacting you if they wanted to learn more?
Speaker 2:You know the easiest way is reach out to us at 239-427-4100. You can email me directly at K first letter of my name, walters, my last name, so kwalters@ homewellcares. com, and you know. Either way, give us a call and our website is homewellcares. com/ FL162. But you can find us and you know. Look for you know where we're located here. We cover Lee and Collier counties, so that's how we're labeled.
Speaker 3:Very good, any last words for our listeners? Any last words for our listeners.
Speaker 2:No, just thank you all for listening to this podcast. I think you share a lot of great information and have a lot of helpful people on this podcast. I am honored to be here.
Speaker 3:I appreciate it. It's been a pleasure getting to know you. Thank you for being such a good neighbor and we'll see you out in the community soon.
Speaker 1:Thank you. Thank you for listening to the Good Neighbor Podcast Estero. To nominate your favorite local businesses to be featured on the show, go to gnpestero. com. That's gnpestero. com, or call 239-296-2621.