We are the oldest elder care service in Seattle, King and south Snohomish Counties. Headquartered in Seattle, we help families with the challenges of aging - working with each client family to help you define your elder care and housing needs, explore your options and find resources. Second Family assists you with care planning, making good choices, and then if you wish, we can help put your plans into effect and monitor the care of your elder.
The services we offer:
Elder Care Management (Care
Monitoring)
Regular visits by our nursing
staff to your elder, regardless of where he or she lives and is cared for. We
provide you impartial professional monitoring of your elder's condition and
care. We report regularly to your family, telling you what we find, what we
accomplish, and what we recommend as needs change. This service is valued by
families who live elsewhere, with elders living in our area, and also by local
families, who want a health care professional to supplement their own
caregiving.
Elder Care Assessment &
Planning
Professional assistance from
our staff to help you assess your elder's care needs and
tailor a care plan for the short and long term.
Housing/Care Advice & Referrals
In-home care assessment and
planning, assisted living facilities,
adult family homes, nursing homes, retirement communities
Resource Referrals
Home care services, elder
law attorneys for powers of attorney, wills, guardianships, etc.; geriatricians
(physicians who specialize in care for the elderly); insurance advice and claims
processing - long term care insurance, Medicare, Medicaid; bill paying and
bookkeeping; geriatric and family counseling
And anything else we can do to help fill your elder care needs.
Topics which follow:
(Click the ones you want to see)
We'll be pleased to talk with you.
Just call or E-Mail us to discuss (at no charge) how we can help you, to help your family.
Second Family
McDonald
Resources for the Aging, Inc.
1415 Orange Place North, Seattle,
WA 98109
Phone: 206-285-4589
Fax: 206-282-1224
E-mail: secfamily@aol.com
How do we provide our services to you?
Our assistance can be a single meeting with you to assess your elder's situation and give you care recommendations and referrals to housing and care resources. Or if you choose, we can continue our work with you, giving hands-on assistance to fill your needs. We can also monitor your elder's care and report regularly to you. We charge for our services by the hour.
We'd be happy to discuss with you
(at no charge) how we can help you, to help your family. Just call or E-mail us.
Second Family's telephone number in Seattle is 206-285-4589 or E-mail at secfamily@aol.com
Our service rates (Hourly
charge for speculative in-person interviews and assessments)
Elder Care Management (Care
Monitoring)
If your family wants
ongoing assistance with elder care, a professional to regularly assess and
report on your elder's status and care, we can fill that need. Our monthly
monitoring fee depends on the amount of time your require - (typically
$200 - $300 per month).
$60 per hour
Elder Care Assessment &
Planning
The charge for our
consultation services is by the hour. A consultation can be a single meeting to
assess your elder's situation and give you care recommendations. And if you
choose, we can work further with you to help meet your particular needs. All
consultations include a detailed written report and most average 2 to 2 1/2
hours of total billed time - (about $250).
$115 per hour
Second family has been helping families fill their elder care needs since 1987. Our staff is primarily registered nurses - licensed professionals who are expert in care planning and the use of our region's care resources.
Each of our staff has over 10 years of experience in assessing the needs of the aging and connecting them and their families with appropriate housing and care assistance.
Second Family does not take compensation from any of the resources or services we recommend to our clients. Our fees come only from the families we serve, so there can be no conflict of interest.
We have earned the respect and
support of our community's leading elder care professionals. Second Family is
regularly entrusted with client referrals from physicians, hospitals, attorneys,
clergy, senior centers, banks and trust officers, social service agencies and
satisfied clients.
Service Example: Elder
Care Management (Care Monitoring)
The
Need:
Mother - Hazel, 82 year-old
widow, living in a Seattle assisted living facility
Disabled with arthritis and osteoporosis
Has difficulty with dressing and bathing. Walks with a walker.
Mentally alert but a tendency toward depression
This is the second facility her family has moved her to.
Son - Peter, 53 years old, living
in Seattle
Husband, father of two
Boeing engineer
Limited caregiving role for his mother due to his career demands and family
conflicts
Daughter - Marsha, 57 years old,
living in Denver
Wife, mother of three, grandmother of two
Long-distance and primary caregiver for mother
Has had difficulty finding a home for her mother, which she feels gives good
enough care.
The
Solution - Elder Care Monitoring:
We visit Hazel twice a month in
the assisted living facility. Our registered nurse checks Hazel's physical
condition and her care. We spend time with her, checking on her medications, her
eating, her personal care, conversing with her, taking her to doctor's
appointments and on outings, being a caring friend. We advocate for her with the
facility's personnel when it's necessary, and we report each visit to the
family, describing Hazel's status, what we've accomplished and our
recommendations for her care.
Service Example: Elder
Care Assessment & Planning
The
Need:
Father
- John, 80
years old, widower, residing in his own Seattle home.
Has been living independently, with some help from his daughters.
His needs and dependence are now increasing.
- losing interest in preparing his own meals
- forgetting to take his medications
- neglecting his own hygiene and the upkeep of his house
Daughters, Ruth and Barbara, both
live in Seattle, each with her own family and career.
Have been helping their father - visiting once a week to bring a meal, to take
him shopping and to clean his house.
But now they recognize his increasing needs. "We wonder if it's time to
move Dad to a facility of some kind, so he will get all the care he should
have."
The
Solution:
Assessment Meeting - we confer with you to help define your care needs and to explore solutions.
Research - we gather information and make recommendations to help you fill your needs, including referrals to appropriate assisted living settings, adult family homes or nursing homes. Clients often tell us that one of our greatest values to them is our answering of questions they haven't yet thought to ask.
Report - we summarize in a detailed written report, our assessments, recommendations and resource referrals.
We met with John and his daughters to discuss John's increasing care needs. Our assessment was that John did not require the skilled medical care of a nursing home. We suggested intermediate and less expensive solutions - supplemental in-home assistance, or a move to an assisted living facility or an adult family home.
The family asked for an in-home care plan, as well as referrals for alternative housing and care.
For now, they have chosen to
supplement their own caregiving for John with home-care assistance, enabling him
to stay in his own home. We will continue to help them with advice and referrals
as John's needs change.
Why do people refer others to Second Family?
1. Second
Family's services respond to real needs.
We are a 19-year-old elder care consulting and care monitoring service. We have earned an unequaled reputation for good work and we enjoy continued business growth.
Or primary mission is helping caregivers find the most appropriate and effective care for their elders. Our secondary mission is assisting caregiving families, so time with their elders can be of the best possible quality.
We help families deliver effective care through:
2. Who are our clients?
Families - adult children, elders and other
family members
Guardians
Attorneys
Trust Officers
3. What is our value to clients?
Expert help - we have a long and rich experience in elder care. Each of our staff has worked in the field for over 10 years.
Full needs assessment:
Impartial assessment and advice - we have no resource bias and no conflicts of interest. We take no payment from any of the resources to which we refer; our only pay is from our clients.
Our fast personal attention is possible because we are a small, locally managed, direct service company. Most of our energies are devoted to serving our clients, not to the internal procedures and support of a large organization.
4. Who refers to us?
Physicians, hospitals, attorneys, banks and trust officers, residence and care facilities, clergy, senior centers, social service agencies and satisfied clients
5. How will referring to Second Family benefit the professional?
6. Second Family has had continued growth for its 19 years, with no direct promotion. Why this growth?
We continue to prove our value and trustworthiness.
Positive word-of-mouth - we have withstood the test of time. Many companies offering similar services have come and gone because they were found to not provide real value for clients, or they had conflicts of interest between client welfare and their own profits, or they just failed to earn a good reputation in our care community.
It's been our experience that families are most open to our assistance if they are referred to us by someone they know and trust - a professional, a family member, a friend. The foundation of our business is referrals from people like these.
7. What sets us apart from the competition?
Our 19-year history and reputation for inspired, professional and dependable service
Our having no solution or service bias, since we are paid only by our clients and not by any of the services or resources to which we refer
Our flexibility for solution, matched to each client's needs, using our care consulting and care monitoring services
8. What will our value be in the changing health care marketplace?
As health care professionals are forced to spend less time with each patient, we can be a useful resource:
9. Our insurance
Each of our elder care nurses has professional insurance.
10. Why should you trust us and our abilities?
We are well-trained professionals, with long
experience, outstanding reputations and with references at your request.
Most of us, at some time, will have an older family member or friend to care for. What information might be helpful to you in meeting this responsibility? Here are some issues you may wish to think about:
Knowing when to help and how to offer it
Care and housing choices
Home care services
Sharing caregiving
Insurances - long term care, Medicare, Medicaid
Legal considerations
Medications and physicians
Nutrition for the aging
Financial and estate planning
Caregiving assistance
Home outfitting for disability
Long distance caregiving
We'll be pleased to talk
with you.
Just call or E-Mail us to discuss (at no charge) how we can help you, to help your family.
Second Family
McDonald
Resources for the Aging, Inc.
1415 Orange Place North, Seattle,
WA 98109
Phone: 206-285-4589
Fax: 206-282-1224
E-mail: secfamily@aol.com