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Urgent calls accepted 24/7 |
Office hours 8:30 – 12:00 noon, 1:00 pm – 5:00 pm Mon - Fri
Respite CareAn Introduction for Parents and Guardians
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| Our Role | Manos Home Care is a vendor of the Regional Center. The Regional Center contracts us to provide respite care for your special needs child. Your Regional Center case manager oversees the case, while Manos Home Care employs and supervises your respite worker. |
| What Respite Workers Do | Our respite worker's primary job is to provide care in your home for your child with special needs. This may include and is not limited to the following activities: bathing, meal preparation, assisting with behavior programs, assisting with homework and language programs, walks to a local playground, participating in games. Respite workers are responsible for cleaning up after activities (or assisting a child in clean-up). |
| Caring for More than One Child | Many families have other children in addition to the one for which we provide respite care. It may be possible to arrange for care that includes your other children. Please contact the office for details. |
Manos Home Care is committed to finding the right respite care worker for your family. We seek to be as flexible as possible in scheduling, services offered, and the placement of a respite care provider in your home, while ensuring our workers are reliable, responsible, and able to care for your child.
| Who We Assign | We assign a respite worker who can best match your particular needs. Some workers may be more experienced with physically handicapped children, while others have strong skills for handling difficult behaviors. Who we assign also depends on the city you live in and the times for which you need the person. All of our workers are carefully screened based on positive employment experience in the care-giving field. We can relay the worker’s history to you upon referral. |
| Choosing Your Own Respite Worker | If you know someone that provides respite care, and you want that person to be your respite worker, we will hire that person for your case based on your written personal reference. Call the office for wages and benefits. |
| Introductory Meeting | Initially a potential respite worker will contact you by phone. At this time you may discuss your and your child’s needs. You can go over any scheduling issues and instructions for the respite care worker. Then arrange an introductory meeting at your home. At this meeting you can review the particular requirements for working with your child with special needs. It is best if your child attends part of this meeting so that the potential worker and he or she can interact. The meeting can be up to two hours, which Manos Care will pay for if you are not yet vendorized with us. Sign the worker’s timesheet for this meeting and keep the pink copy for your records. |
| Replacing a Worker | Please keep the office informed as to the quality of the care being provided. If the worker is not acceptable, we will continue to recruit until we find the right person for your respite care. |
Communication with our office is essential to maintaining quality care
for your child. We have a 24-hour number through which you can reach us.
| Communication With the Office | You can call the office 24 hours a day. If you need to talk to us when we are not in the office, we can be contacted by leaving a message after the beep. Please leave your name and telephone number. If it is not urgent, you can press the 2 and # sign, and we will pick up the message during our next business day. Our office hours are 8:30 a.m. to 12:00 noon, and 1:00 p.m. to 5:00 p.m., Monday through Friday. |
| Call When There Is a Problem | Please call us if there is a service problem. Don’t wait for a little problem to turn into a big one! You
should expect your respite provider to:
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| Request Quality Services | Your expectations are crucial in obtaining quality services from our workers. You must expect quality service in order to receive it. We will do our best to accommodate your needs. |
Your have the option of scheduling your hours directly with your respite worker or through the office. Please give adequate notice of changes in schedules, and make sure you get a copy of the weekly time sheet.
| Scheduling | Since the needs of a parent usually require the respite schedule to vary, we leave it up to the respite worker and the family to design their own plan. For cases with many respite hours, this will usually mean a base schedule with extra visits added on. For example, if you mostly need weekend care, we will assign you a worker who can work weekends. Please keep in mind that the worker may have other cases and will need to coordinate these cases with yours. |
| Variable Scheduling | For cases with less respite hours, your visit schedule may vary from week to week. Our goal is to provide you with a worker who is available for the schedule you need. You should schedule visits at least every other week. You will also need to state the general time periods and days which you will schedule your worker. |
| Scheduling Requests | In order to find a worker, we will take down your scheduling needs over the phone. It is good to state the general times that you need respite care. We will use this information when coordinating your request with the availability of different respite workers. To help with coverage, it is possible to have more than one respite worker. We may also be able to provide temporary substitutes for your regular worker provided there is sufficient notice. |
| Cancellations | If you wish to cancel a visit, call your scheduled worker at least 24 hours in advance. Call the office if you cannot get in touch with your respite worker. If you schedule a visit and do not cancel within 24 hours, your POS account will be charged two hours for show-up time. |
| Absences | If your worker is more than fifteen minutes late to a scheduled visit, call the worker at their home number to verify that they are coming. If lateness or absences become a pattern, call the office so that can we assist in addressing this situation. |
| Minimum Hours per Visit | Four hours per visit is generally our minimum requirement. However, if the respite worker lives near to you, you may be able to arrange a schedule of fewer hours per visit. |
Your hours are limited to the number determined by the Regional Center. You must track the hours that you schedule your worker so that you do not go over the limit.
| The Purchase of Service (POS) | The POS is the amount of hours the Regional Center will pay Manos Home Care to provide respite care. POSs are arranged by the week, month, or calendar quarter (Jan-Mar, Apr-Jun, Jul-Sep, and Oct-Dec). If you don't use your hours during your POS period, you lose them. |
| Track The Hours Worked | The Regional Center will not reimburse us for respite hours which go over the POS amount. Please schedule your time carefully. Marking the hours on a calendar is usually the easiest way. |
| An Example for Tracking Hours | Mark on the calendar your total number of hours at the beginning of the period. Each visit, mark the hours worked, and how many hours you have left. If you have 60 hours per quarter, mark "60" at the beginning of the quarter. If your provider works 4 hours on the first visit, mark "4/56" on the calendar. The first number is how many hours the worker worked, and the second is how many hours are left. |
| Time Sheets | In order to track the hours worked by your respite care worker, they need to present a time sheet for you to initial on a daily basis, and sign on a weekly basis. That time sheet should list the hours worked during that week. Signing the time sheet shows us that the provider worked the hours on the time sheet. Keep the pink copy of your time sheet. It is your proof of how many hours your provider has worked, and the charges made to your POS. |
| Extra Hours Charged to Family | Manos Home Care reserves the right to bill you for any hours which you sign for on your Manos Home Care Time Sheets, if these hours go over the limits of your Regional Center POS authorization(s). We will bill any additional respite hours at our current billing rate for the Regional Center. Please call the office for our current rate. |
| Transportation | If you want your worker to drive your child somewhere, you must reimburse them at the rate of $0.31 per mile (these miles should not be on the time sheet). You also need to cover the costs for any entertainment activities if you request the respite worker to take the child to these events (museums, movies, etc.). These costs include the costs for your child and your respite worker. |