Our senior caregivers go through a thorough interview and screening process so we can be sure that they have the character and experience to help elderly adults in Jenkintown, Ambler, Abington, Philadelphia, Horsham, Hatboro and surrounding areas in Eastern Montgomery County, PA safely and comfortably age in place

Our senior caregivers are highly valued members of our team. Visiting Angels Jenkintown takes extra special care in going above and beyond what is considered to be “industry standards” to select only the best caregivers for you to ensure your safety and satisfaction.

Caregiver Introductions

While screening caregivers is important, there is nothing that can take the place of meeting a caregiver personally. Visiting Angels enjoys the opportunity to have you and your family "Select Your Caregiver" from our capable staff.  When you have the opportunity to meet your caregiver, you can determine how well suited the caregiver is to meet your specific needs; and how well the caregiver and care recipient's personalities will work together. Once you feel comfortable with the caregiver, in-home care services can start on your schedule. The “Select Your Caregiver” process helps to ensure that the caregiver you want, is the caregiver you choose!

We Hire Only Experienced Senior Caregivers

Caregivers who join the Visiting Angels team must provide verifiable documentation of their credentials, training and 2 years of experience. Each caregiver must be a licensed CNA (Certified Nursing Assistant) or HHA (Home Health Aid) or take the PA Department of Public Welfare Direct Direct Care Staff Training course and Competency test.

Interviewing

When a caregiver is hired, there are several steps involved.  First, prospective caregivers are screened with a twelve (12) question survey to determine if the individual is qualified for an interview.  Next, the prospective caregiver is interviewed by our Human Resources Coordinator.  In these interviews, we spend a great deal of time having the prospective caregiver tell us “their story” and give us real-life examples of their experiences caring for seniors.  We find that having these one-on-one conversations tells us a great deal about the individual.  The next step is to qualify their credentials and talk with current and previous employers.  Once they pass this step, we are ready to perform the criminal background check.  Finally, we schedule them for an orientation session and administer the drug screening.

Reference Checks

Visiting Angels requires all at home caregivers to have positive responses from verifiable industry references. An individual’s past experience is at times a good indicator of future performance. For this reason, we seek out only those caregivers with independently verifiable references.

Background Checks

All senior caregivers undergo extremely rigorous background checks. The following checks are mandatory for all caregivers:

• National criminal background check
• Federal and State level background check
• An address locator seeks out where the caregiver has lived for the past 7 years and then performs a county level background check for each of those counties.
• Social Security Number validation
• Sex Offender Registry checking
• Local multi-county criminal background checks
• Department of Motor Vehicle checks
• Multiple names and alias checks

As you can see, we are extremely thorough and incredibly cautious to help ensure your safety. We would expect nothing less if we were caring for our own family.

Orientation and In-Service Education

After we have carefully screened and interviewed a prospective caregiver and we have determined they are worthy to be one of our “Angels,” we bring them in for an in-depth Orientation Session.  Visiting Angels sets very high standards for the employees we hire.  Our Orientation Session not only covers all the policies and procedures of our organization, but also includes a section on In-Home Safety Awareness.

If there is one thing that we have learned it is that if you expect great things from your team, you must educate them to meet that expectation. Hiring "experienced" senior caregivers should not replace an initial orientation and ongoing education.  Our Caregivers attend Inservice Education on topics such as Dementia, Occupational, and Physical Therapy and Hospice to keep their skills sharp.

Drug Screening

Before any caregiver has the opportunity to work on our team, they must first undergo a mandatory drug screen. This allows us to help ensure that all our caregivers are not only screened at the point of hire (where it might be conceivable that there would be a drug screen), but randomly throughout their employment.

Phone Check In and Out System

How do you know that your caregiver is providing care when they are supposed to be? Visiting Angels Jenkintown has a phone clock in and out system. The caregivers are required to clock in and out from your home phone. We are aware of exactly when a caregiver arrives by that phone call. If the caregiver has not arrived within 10 minutes of a scheduled shift, all Visiting Angels administrative personnel are alerted by email, text message and paging so that proactive measures can be taken to ensure that a visit is not missed.

Quality Assurance

Not only does Visiting Angels Jenkintown put in place an incredibly strong filtering system when hiring senior caregivers; but when caregivers are providing home care services, we schedule unannounced drop-ins called “Quality Assurance Visits.” We like to catch our caregivers doing a great job.  After these visits, we will call the appropriate family members to bring them up-to-date on how their loved ones are doing and make any necessary changes.  In addition, our Director and Client Services Manager make it a priority to touch base with family members and/or care recipients on a weekly basis just to be sure the in-home care that is being performed is in accordance with the plan of care. Your 100 percent satisfaction is our top priority.

Serving Abington, Ambler, Dresher, Elkins Park, Erdenheim, Flourtown, Ft. Washington, Glenside, Hatboro, Horsham, Huntingdon Valley, Abington, Lower Gwynedd, Lower Moreland, Oreland, Rockledge, Upper Moreland, Willow Grove, Wyncote, Spring House and Cheltenham located in Montgomery County PA.