MOSES LAKE — Some folks, when they get a little older, just need a little help. 

“The basis of in-home caregiving is to keep the clients in their home for as long as possible, instead of having them go to a nursing home or assisted living,” said Family Resource Home Care Branch Manager Marisa Martinez. 

Family Resource Home Care has been around since 1960 and opened its Moses Lake office in 2023, Martinez said. The company serves as a specialized employment agency, matching caregivers with clients who could use a little – or a lot of – help around the home. 

Family Resource Home Care provides three levels of care, Martinez said. Level 1 is basic help: house cleaning, transportation and things on that scale. 

“Level 2 is a medium range, where you can do house cleaning, some personal care like showering and helping them get dressed,” Martinez said. “At level 3, we branch up to full-fledged care: Hoyer lifts, sit-to-stand lifts, lifts to get clients up out of bed, (taking) care of somebody who's incontinent. Whatever somebody may need help with.” 

Level 3 also includes dementia care, Martinez said. 

“We have some caregivers who are strictly only Level 1, because they have lifting restrictions or something (like that),” Martinez said. ‘But otherwise, we try to make sure that all of our caregivers can do all three levels.” 

Family Resource Home Care employs 125-130 caregivers, Martinez said, in Grant and Adams counties and part of Lincoln County. The caregivers are certified through an online home care aide program that covers things like bloodborne pathogens, catheter cleaning and personal care like helping clients dress or moving them from a bed to a wheelchair. Once that course is complete, the caregiver is certified through a standard state test. Then they’re fingerprinted and undergoing a background check through both the State of Washington and the FBI. 

The clients come through referrals from various agencies that work with seniors, and through online searches, Martinez said. After the client or their family fills out an online questionnaire, a client care supervisor from Family Resource Home Care will contact them and set up a time for an evaluation. 

“We collect information on them, like their mobility, what they're needing done in their home, whether it's housework or heavy care,” said Client Care Supervisor Vanessa Silva. “Then, based on the answers that we get, we form a care plan that has tasks for our caregivers to do.” 

The evaluation also includes things like whether the client is an indoor smoker or has pets that a caregiver might be allergic to, Silva said. Then the client care supervisors work out a schedule with the client. 

“Then we are required to do a six-month home observation visit,” Silva said. “We go and put eyes on our clients every six months make sure that their health is still in good standing, the home is in good standing and it's not a hazard to themselves or a caregiver. We follow up with them regularly on the phone too, if they call for a question or concern.” 

The client care supervisors are pretty good at matching caregivers and clients, Silva said. 

“Most of the time it’s the first caregiver we send,” she said. “Every once in a while, it’s trial and error. They might get two or three caregivers before they’re like, ‘Oh, we really like this one.’ But that doesn’t happen very often.” 

One of the keys to success in home care is support from the client’s family, Silva said. 

“We have some clients who don't have any family, and they rely solely on us,” she said. “That's a little difficult. They have maybe a neighbor who checks on them or their state case manager and us. But a lot of our clients have really great families, whether it's a sibling or a daughter or son or daughter-in-law, son-in-law, grandchildren.” 

Silva has been in the business for 25 years, she said, 20 of them as a caregiver. 

“I've worked in every kind of facility, assisted living, memory care, hospitals, one-on-one, private care,” she said. “I've done a little bit of everything … I still love being so involved. It's nice because I still get to see clients and still get to interact with them and let them live their best years out until they're gone. I love that aspect of it, because the caring truly never goes away,” 

    From left: Family Resource Home Care Branch Manager Marisa Martinez cuts the ribbon on the Moses Lake office March 11, surrounded by her team members and Moses Lake Chamber of Commerce members.