Are we “Caregivers?” or “Care Partners?”

“Most people agree that the world would be a better place if we all cared more for one another, but despite that initial agreement we find it is hard to say exactly what we mean by caring.”   – Nel Noddings, Caring and Social Policy    

As an eldercare professional or family caregiver are you sometimes surprised by the amount of time you spend in the caregiving tasks?

Do you ever feel that the snack or meals to prepare, the hands to wash, the shower to give, the transferring into and out of bed or wheelchairs, the assistance with dressing, toileting, and eating, the medications to give, or the laundry to do is getting in the way of engaging in relationship with the person you are caring for?

• What if we adopted a new way of thinking about care and incorporated it into the heart of our caring rituals?
• What would our practice look like if we lifted-up the daily chores of caring as honorable rituals and essential caring practices in partnership with one another and the person we care for?

  Care is not a one-way street

  In a culture that typically views aging as a period of decline, I believe that no matter how old we are or what challenges we live with, life is about continuing to grow.  I work with Care Partners and elders and families.  From them, I  have learned that care is not a one-way street, but rather a collaborative partnership.  It warms my heart to see caregivers embracing their person-centered elder-directed roles as ‘Care Partners’ -as active participants in the balance of giving and receiving.  Together, care partner teams strive to enhance the well-being of both the person providing care and the person receiving care.  It is a partnership. It is a relationship.

Caring is not only a physical task. 

Caring requires understanding, relationship, and partnership. In routines such as washing and dressing, feeding and comforting, I have witnessed a transformation of daily caring rituals through care partnerships into opportunities for engaging, connecting and learning.  I have seen  Care Partners and Elders learning every moment the deepest lessons through the caring partnership.

If a person is receiving care and does not have the opportunity to give care or even have a say in his/her own care – they become helpless and hopeless.  In a care partner relationship, the elder adult is empowered. 

In the past, caring may have been viewed as a minimum standard of keeping an elder adult safe and clean, or as something ‘anyone’ could do.  

In the emerging future, care must be viewed as an intentional practice that connects us to one another, requires specialized knowledge about elders, about learning, and human development.  

• Caring rituals are a science
• Caring rituals are an art form.  
• Caring rituals enhance the elder adult’s physical, spiritual, emotional and social well-being.
• Caring rituals compel us to be intelligent, thinking, respectful, state-of-the-art-care partners.  
• Caring rituals allow us to be partners in the caring relationship – empowering the vulnerable person to teach us how to care by listening, observing and partnering for that person’s well being as well as our own.

To care we must seek to know many things. We care with plans, purpose, objectives, and heart.

Families trust us with the care of the oldest citizens in our communities.  The caring rituals that elders and families seek from us have the potential to shape our unique identity as Care Partners.  

The best of our Senior Housing Communities become second homes of elders and their families and our care partners.  They receive comfort and confidence in joining us, teaching us, and partnering with us.

 As Milton Mayeroff said, “In the sense in which a man can ever be said to be at home in the world, he is at home not through domination, or explaining, or appreciating, but through caring and being cared for” (On Caring published 1971).  

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Jean Garboden, Director of Education & Innovation at Compass Senior Living

About the Author: Jean Garboden is the Director of Education and Innovation at Compass Senior Living, located in Eugene Oregon. Jean is an Elder Advocate and Eden Alternative Educator with over 30 years’ experience in not-for-profit and for-profit health care organizations. She is honored to lead the mission and values culture development for Compass Senior Living. Jean lives in Las Vegas, Nevada where she enjoys the weather and volunteers with the Nevadans for the Common Good, advocating for caregivers and elders in southern Nevada.

Not invisible any more – a courageous journey to change the world!

“We sometimes speak as if caring did not require knowledge –  as if caring for someone is simply a matter of good intentions or warm regard. But to care, I must understand the other’s needs and must be able to respond properly to them – and clearly good intentions do not guarantee this. To care for someone, I must know many things.”

– Milton Mayeroff

Yes – to care for someone, I must know many things!

I have the privilege of teaching our care teams in our Independent, Assisted Living, and Memory Care communities in the United States about how to embark on a courageous journey to change the world by embracing and evoking their power as educated caregivers.

Let’s make the invisibility of care visible as we gain specialized knowledge about human development.

Invisibility of Care 

The deep assumption about caring is that it is something anyone can do, but we do not take care of human beings the same way we take care of a house or a lawn!  We must know many things.

The way we touch others increases or diminishes their self-worth.

• The sensations of the body are the pathways to intellect and emotions. Caring routines involve engagement around bodily functions (elimination, cleaning, eating, sleeping) and therefore they hold the most intimate importance.
• In the past, caring tasks may have been viewed as custodial. In the emerging future, care is viewed as an honorable practice that requires specialized knowledge about human development.
• When we see the other as competent and capable, we practice caring as a conversation — a reciprocal exchange.  We find ourselves doing things “with” others instead of doing them “to” others.  We engage in relationship-planning rather than care-planning.
• We view care as a practice that nurtures another’s development, actualization, and self-sufficiency. This is the opposite of caring in a way that creates helplessness, frustration, dependency, or entanglement.
• Caring is associated with strength and power — not passivity or weakness. The other feels his or her wholeness in our caring response.

Caring and being cared for can give meaning to our lives

I believe that caring plays a much bigger role in our lives than you might think. The experience of caring can ‘shape us’, and help create order and stability in our own lives.

• Knowing – “I must understand the other’s needs and be able to respond properly’” and “I must know what my own powers and limitations are”.
• Alternating rhythms – Moving back and forth between a narrower and a wider framework- at times focusing on the detail, at others on the wider picture; sometimes doing, sometimes doing nothing; always watching and seeking feedback on those actions/inactions.
• Patience – “I must enable the other to grow in their own time and in their own way –  giving the other room to live.”
• Honesty – This means being open to oneself and to others – seeing others as they really are and seeing myself as I really am.
• Trust –  Trusting the other is to let go; it includes an element of risk and a leap into the unknown, both of which take courage.
• Humility – There is always something more to learn. Through caring, I come to a truer appreciation of my limitations as well as my powers.
• Hope – Through caring, the carer instills hope into the relationship.
• Courage – a carer needs courage because, as with any relationship, this is largely a journey into the unknown.

Caring is what makes us human.  By educating ourselves and claiming the power we have to grow and impact others – we each have an opportunity to evolve into powerful change agents to be part of a movement creating a caring world.  Let’s take this courageous journey as super-caregivers!

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Jean Garboden, Director of Education & Innovation at Compass Senior Living

About the Author: Jean Garboden is an Elder Advocate and Eden Alternative Educator with over 30 years’ experience in not-for-profit and for-profit healthcare organizations. She is honored to lead the mission and values culture development for Compass Senior Living in Eugene, Oregon. Jean lives in Las Vegas, Nevada where she enjoys the weather and volunteers with the Nevadans for the Common Good, advocating for caregivers and elders in southern Nevada