OHCA The Oregon Caregiver Fall Winter 2020

www.ohca.com FALL/WINTER 2020 The Oregon Caregiver 9 FEATURE wearing masks in facilities is mandatory, that is not the case for in-home care. “We can’t mandate, but we would encourage you to wear masks,” he said. “We have to have really open and honest conversations with the clients them- selves and with their families. For the most part, they’re fairly receptive.” At the time of this publication, zero clients and caregivers from Adeo In-Home Care have contracted the virus. Call attributes his spotless record to his staff who he says are always willing to work additional hours or pick-up extra shifts. “It just takes a certain kind of person to be a caregiver that just has a huge heart and doesn’t care if they get sick. They just care about other people and want to do the best they can to keep them as safe as possible,” said Call. What started as a scramble to create safety protocols for residents and employees, has turned into a great display of collaboration and creativity in the era of a virtual awakening. Care staff threw out their playbooks and started from scratch to come up with innovative ideas to safely connect with residents and appease families who crave contact with loved ones. In a time where change is out of any single person’s control, 2020 will go down as the year that caregivers and medical staff embraced the challenges with fresh perspectives, stronger teams, and the foresight to tighten and stream- line systems what were once holes in their infection control plans. It has allowed providers to take a pause to re-evaluate and re-prioritize their goals and values. “This pandemic has brought us together as a team in so many different ways and pushed us to work harder to make sure that we’re giving the residents what they need and supporting the families because they’re having a difficult time too,” said Cormier. “[The pandemic] has opened our eyes to activities that we hadn’t even thought of and we’re just going to keep doing, so I think that’s been a really fun and unique aspect of this.” – Desa Silbaugh, Digital Marketing Specialist, Seasons Living