Some families do not have one house to staff. The parent sleeps at one address on some nights and at another on the rest, or spends a set number of days at a sibling's home and the remainder at their own. The help you hire has to match that pattern, or the first shift at the wrong address will teach you the mistake.

Local option: New Plan Care gives families in the St. Louis area in-home help so a parent can stay home: companionship, help with bathing and dressing, meals, and overnight care. Call (314) 405-0887.

Step 1: Map the nights

Write a seven-line calendar. For each day, write the address where the parent sleeps and the address where the parent spends the daytime.

Day 1: ______________________ Day 2: ______________________ Day 3: ______________________ Day 4: ______________________ Day 5: ______________________ Day 6: ______________________ Day 7: ______________________

Mark any day that changes from week to week. A calendar that changes often needs a written rule for who tells the caregiver, and how far ahead.

Step 2: List what each address needs on the shift

For each address, write the rooms the parent uses, the door or entry route, where the medicine is kept, where the phone charger sits, and where the parent is most often found. These are not clinical questions. They are the questions a new person will ask on the first morning, and a caregiver who has to ask them at the door is already behind.

Step 3: Decide whether one caregiver covers both addresses

Ask each provider these questions and write the answers down.

  1. Will the caregiver work at both addresses on the same day, or on separate days?
  2. Who arranges and pays for the trip between the two homes, and how is that time recorded?
  3. If the parent is moved without warning, who tells the caregiver, and does the company accept the change without a new contract?
  4. Which address is the official one for the paperwork, the insurance, and the emergency contact sheet?

Listen for a company that can name the trip rule before it names a price. Walk away from any provider who says the travel is a detail you can work out later.

Step 4: Keep one set of instructions that travels

Keep a single written instruction sheet and a single notebook. Each address gets its own copy of the room list and the door route, but the medicine schedule and the appointment list must be the same everywhere. Medicine stays with the family, the doctor, and the pharmacist. A caregiver may remind the parent to take it and may pick up a prescription at the pharmacy as an errand, but the caregiver does not hand out, sort, or manage it at either address.

Once the nights, rooms, trips, and instructions are written, you can take the two-address plan to the providers and compare them on the same page. The Local Help for Hiring a Caregiver page lists where St. Louis families can get help putting the plan on paper.