1) Of course, you’ll want a qualified Certified Nursing Assistant (CNA), who is completely qualified to help with light housekeeping, meal preparation and serving, ambulation, assistance with personal hygiene, errands, companionship and more. Only a licensed agency is truly knowledgeable and prepared with a roster of qualified CNA’s. At AHCS, we only hire experienced and licensed CNA’s.

2) In the event that a caregiver gets hurt while on your premises, you won’t want to be held responsible. At AHCS, our caregivers are all covered with Worker’s Compensation.

3) You’ll want to be sure to protect yourself from theft. All of our caregivers are bonded.

4) While on shift, if a caregiver were to have a car accident or accidentally dropped a patient, you’d want to make sure they have liability insurance. All AHCS caregivers do.

5) If you were to hire an independent caregiver, the responsibility of background checks and getting references would fall on you. When you choose AHCS, you get an agency with many years of staffing experience in the home care industry.  Thus, insuring we provide only the best, most qualified and experienced caregivers.

6) When you hire AHCS, you’re not just enlisting the help of one caregiver. You’re getting the total  peace of mind that comes with knowing you’ll have care whenever you need it.  So if your usual caregiver can’t make it one day, we’ll always have another one to fill in immediately.

7) A home care agency may cost a few dollars more per hour, but when it comes to having worry-free and qualified care, isn’t it worth it?

For more information, please call us at 770-736-7977.

Q: You’ve (co-)owned your home care agency for over eight years. What do you attribute your success in the home healthcare provider industry? We’ve been able to grow and nurture a wonderful network of caregivers. We have over 100 CNA’s on our roster right now.

Q: How did you grow your network of caregivers? Over time, word of mouth leads them to us. The ability to retain their services is key. We’re here at all times to address their questions and concerns. We also create accountability from them.

Sweaters for Seniors "Fulton County" team left to right: Sharna Fulton, AHCS; Steven Hargrove, SCS Metro Atlanta, Missy Hirsh and Lexi Fields, the Galloway School

In one metro Atlanta county, there’s a socially minded school responsible for educating the next generation. Also, in that same county (Fulton) is SCS of Metro Atlanta that cares for the needs of seniors.

Last Thursday, representatives from both organizations met for the first time in a hallway at the Galloway School on behalf of  “Sweaters For Seniors.”

It was a really happy day, but not just for the warm sunlight that beamed through the school’s big windows. Or because of the melange of yellow and red trees just outside those windows as you overlooked Chastain Park. What made this morning special was like-minded people in various careers assembling on behalf of a common cause – to help keep Atlanta’s seniors warm this coming winter.

In attendance were Missy Hirsh, Assistant to the College Counselor for Galloway, Lexi Fields, Galloway Economics Teacher and Service Fair Director, Steven Hargrove, Director of Special Events for SCS and myself, Sharna Fulton, Director of Marketing of Sweaters for Seniors and AHCS. (As a friend, Craig Pigg accompanied Steven Hargrove to Galloway as he is considering sending his son, Cooper to the school next year.)

So why were three different organizations involved in the collection of 174 pounds of sweaters you may ask? (Missy Hirsh weighed the many green bags of beautiful sweaters made with heavy wool, cashmere, fleece and dry cleaned just for S4s.)

The answer is that we at AHCS, sought for the first time this year, to make “Sweaters For Seniors” truly a community endeavor. Why?

#1:  Schools were the best resource for collecting sweaters for seniors the past 2 years. We realized it was students were the most enthusiastic and truly what made the program special.

#2: We thought it would be a good way to connect Atlanta’s youth to Atlanta’s seniors. (After all, young or old, we are all one!)

#3: We wanted to put the spotlight on the senior service agencies and what they do for Atlanta’s elder population. We felt that by connecting schools with their same county senior agencies, we could make school communities aware of the seniors’ needs in their own neighborhood. What’s more, with blog and Facebook posts like these, we could further illuminate the existence of and what agencies like SCS of Metro Atlanta does to help seniors.

In conclusion, I’m really pleased with the outcome of this partnership for 2010. Galloway’s Missy Hirsh puts it best.  “I want our students to learn about thinking outside of their own box. Sometimes, there’s a stigma attached to not having ‘things.’ By collecting sweaters for seniors, our students were able to know there are people with needs and that it’s okay to understand that and to help them.

Thanks to the outstanding organizational skills of Steven Hargrove and his staff — Hargrove reports SCS just raised $504K last week during their annual black tie fundraising event –  the sweaters will have value too! When I approached Hargrove last summer as to whether SCS could find use for “sweater donations,” he responded “yes.” Within a few days, he had the perfect idea for the sweaters — to deliver them to  SCS’s 300 clients along with their Thanksgiving Meals on Wheels.

As we button-up collections for Fulton County’s seniors this year, we look forward to more schools joining us in the “4th Annual Sweaters for Seniors” coming next fall!

Let us help you with the one you love. Introducing Respite Care! Are you a caregiver taking care of an elder parent or spouse? Could you use a break? We now offer individual 4 hour caregiver respite care with 48 hour notice. Call 770-736-7977 for a free telephone assessment.