VICTORVILLE — As the population of seniors continues to grow, one local care agency is ready to beef up its staff to keep up with the demand.
Home Instead Senior Care serves Apple Valley, Hesperia and Victorville, and the local office has announced plans to hire up to 50 people over the next three months.
Rebecca Muehling, a spokeswoman for Home Instead, said potential hires could include recent graduates, out-of-work job seekers, those looking for a career change or seniors looking to help others.
Brandi Johnson, owner of the Home Instead office in Victorville, said whether it's a senior just needing some help running errands and doing some light cooking and cleaning, or needing round-the-clock care, having a professional caregiver can make a huge difference in the life of a senior and their family members.
"We have a lot of people that think they don't qualify, but we do all the training ourselves. All they need is compassion and love for seniors," Johnson told the Daily Press. "Some of our best caregivers are the ones that came to us with doubts about themselves, but they're usually the ones who have stuck with us for 10 or more years."
Johnson said basic training is usually completed in a couple of days, but caregivers also have the opportunity to receive additional training throughout their careers in such areas as Alzheimer’s care, companionship and personal care, meals and nutrition, transportation, household duties, respite care, hospice care support services and 24-hour and live-in care.
Johnson, who joined the Home Instead network 15 years ago, said the Home Instead model is a "win-win" situation where seniors can be cared for at home and jobs are created for the community.
Judy Livingston, who has been a Home Instead caregiver for seven years, said the flexible schedule is one of the best things about her job.
“Being a caregiver has given me a good work-life balance that a lot of people I know don’t have in their jobs,” Livingston said. “Plus, it’s just really rewarding to get to know my clients on a personal level and know that I’m making their lives better.”
Johnson said her company keeps up on all of the latest news and industry standards in home care, and its training program helps to ensure that caregivers are getting the information they need to better support seniors and their families.
By 2050, it's predicted that the senior population will more than double from the 2010 numbers with a projected estimate of 88.5 million people aged 65 or older, Home Instead says.
About 29 percent of the U.S. population reports that it spends an average of 20 hours per week providing care for a chronically ill, disabled or aging loved one.
Today, this senior care network is the world's leading provider of in-home care services for seniors, with more than 1,000 independently owned and operated franchises that are estimated to annually provide more than 50 million hours of care throughout the United States and 14 other countries.
For more information on the Home Instead Senior Care® network, please visit www.homeinstead.com/home-care-jobs or call 760-843-5655.