Caring for a loved one at home is a journey that weaves together love, dedication, and no small amount of grit. It’s a role that family caregivers embrace with their whole hearts, but it comes with challenges that can weigh heavily on even the most resilient souls. Home care agencies step into this delicate space not just as service providers but also as advocates for the elderly.
But as lifelines offering practical support, emotional encouragement, and a sense of shared purpose. When done right, home care doesn’t just help someone stay safe at home; it builds trust, fosters connection, and lifts the spirits of everyone involved: clients, families, and caregivers alike.
To shed some light on the same, we interviewed a home care industry expert to bring his perspective on caregiver and staff wellness in complex home care delivery.
Who Did We Interview?
Barry Jacobs, PsyD, is a clinical psychologist, family therapist, and Principal at Health Management Associates. A former journalist, he is the author of The Emotional Survival Guide for Caregivers and coauthor of several AARP books, including Meditations for Caregivers and The Caregiver Answer Book (2025). Since 2013, he has written a caregiver-focused column for AARP.org.
Dr. Jacobs is an honorary board member of the Well Spouse Association and maintains a psychotherapy practice in Media, PA, supporting those with chronic illness and their caregivers. He also cared for his stepfather with Alzheimer’s and his mother with vascular dementia.
Here’s What Barry Shared About Supporting Caregivers and Strengthening Home Care.
Family caregivers need four things to cope as well as possible with caring for an aging or disabled family member: respect, reliability, education, and support. Home care agencies can and should provide all of them.
Respect comes in the form of acknowledging and valuing the expertise that family caregivers have of clients’ needs, preferences, personalities, and histories. Agency directors, social workers, and staff should ask family caregivers about their perspectives first before offering any suggestions about how to care for clients.
There is no better support, of course, than reliable service. Family caregivers often find few situations as disruptive and frustrating as trying to work with personal care aides who fail to show up or arrive late.
Once family caregivers’ expertise has been respected, then agency directors and social workers should offer educational materials, including well-researched informational websites (e.g., Mayo Clinic, Cleveland Clinic) about a client’s condition and treatments, as well as sites about the joys and challenges of family caregiving (e.g., AARP, Family Caregiver Alliance, Caregiver Action Network).
Providing support can be as simple as asking about the family caregiver’s well-being or offering compliments on the good job they are doing for the client. For those family caregivers who appear to be under greater strain, seeming tired and irritable, then it is a good idea to recommend that they reach out to their local Area Agency on Aging (which can be located through the federal Administration on Aging’s Eldercare Locator) to learn about in-person and online caregiver support groups and other resources.
Every clinical assessment of a client should include short screeners for depression (e.g., PHQ-9) and anxiety (e.g., GAD-7). Those who screen positively on these instruments or who display other evidence of behavioral health symptoms, such as behavior problems, should be referred for more extensive evaluation by a licensed mental health or medical provider. Their input should be incorporated into the care plan.
Few psychotherapists make home visits, but most provide teletherapy. For clients who lack access to computers or smartphones or feel uncomfortable with digital technologies, the agency can facilitate such visits by helping clients set up their computers or lending them an iPad or other device for use during these visits. It is a good idea for agencies to develop ongoing relationships with local behavioral health providers to facilitate easier referrals or to arrange for agency staff to confer with them about client cases.
Agency staff need the same things to foster resilience as family caregivers—respect, reliability, education, and support.
Being treated by supervisors as a valued member of the team doing important work will help personal care aides feel encouraged and may increase their loyalty to the agency. When clients and/or family caregivers disrespect staff members, supervisors should find ways to protect them, either by setting limits with those clients and family members or by giving aides the option to switch to other clients.
Staff members need to know that their agency reliably has their backs. That includes receiving performance reviews, pay and raises on time. It also means creating a team culture in which staff members are expected to support one another, rather than competing against each other.
Support can come in the form of private or public praise for excellent work performance. Agencies could consider creating internal mentoring or coaching programs in which more experienced staff members provide guidance to newer aides who may be struggling with the job’s stressors. Recognizing birthdays, anniversaries, births, deaths, and other significant life events can help employees feel acknowledged as individuals with full lives and promote a work-life balance culture.
Health insurance plans and health systems routinely risk-stratify patients based on their problems and medication lists, histories of ER and hospital utilization, and health-related social needs. While most of this data is proprietary, agencies can benefit from partnering with payers and providers to identify high-risk patients and coordinate care plans, helping to keep them at home and out of facilities.
In 2022, the Federal Administration for Community Living released the National Strategy to Support Family Caregivers, which contains numerous ideas for federal and state agencies, healthcare and social service providers, and other stakeholders to support family caregivers. Despite recent policy and funding changes under the new administration, the document remains the go-to resource for all family caregiver advocacy.
One of the key areas of focus is to increase respite opportunities for family caregivers. Home care agencies can help meet that goal by offering round-the-clock services to clients when needed, allowing family caregivers to take an extended break and replenish themselves.
Barry Jacobs knows caregiving inside and out, having spent years helping families and caring for his own. His advice is like a friendly guide for home care agencies, showing them how to support caregivers and their workers with respect, reliability, education, and a whole lot of heart. By using tech wisely and fighting for caregiver support, agencies can meet the growing need for care that feels personal. As 2025 unfolds, agencies that listen, adapt, and care deeply will build stronger, happier communities, one family, one smile, and one kind word at a time.
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