Taking home care to a new level of support

By Gina Gallagher | Citizens Contributor

Always here home care, a 2020 Small Business Community Champion Award winner in Boston, is helping those who need and provide quality care to live their best lives.

Brooke Martindale wasn’t alive when her grandmother Verna suffered her first stroke at 53 years old. She does, however, remember the stories her family shared about challenges they faced early on with her grandmother’s care.

“I heard about caregivers who didn’t show up and others who stood back and did nothing while my grandmother struggled,” Brooke recalls.

In later years, when her grandmother suffered additional strokes, Brooke was around to see those challenges firsthand. As a child, she wasn’t able to help resolve them for her family, but today, Brooke’s made it her business to help with the health care challenges of other families.

Brooke is the president and owner of Always Here Home Care, Inc., a private home care company in Boston that’s helping those who need and provide compassionate care to live their best lives. The work done by Brooke, her husband Terry, and their team earned the company the $20,000 first-place prize in the 2020 Small Business Community Champion Award contest for the greater Boston market.

It's all pretty amazing, considering Brooke initially started down a completely different career path.

A passion to build something special

In 2008, Brooke was living a pretty good life of her own. The New York native and graduate of Duke University came to Boston at 24 as part of an investment firm’s financial advisor training program. She spent two years providing clients with retirement planning and wealth management solutions, and was on track for a promising and lucrative career in financial planning. That is, until she hit the pause button.

“I just didn’t find the joy in the financial part,” Brooke explains. So in August 2008, she informed her shocked supervisor that she was resigning.

Brooke’s plan was to start her own organizational consulting business to help business owners streamline processes and free up time to work on their true missions. But just a month after she resigned, the Great Recession happened. Knowing that people would no longer be able to afford a luxury service business, Brooke decided to start a different business in 2009; one that included a passion she discovered while working at her old investment firm and a serious challenge that impacted her senior colleagues and their families: home health care.

A solution to a national problem

Brooke is the first to admit she didn’t know a lot about the home health care industry when she started her business. But as she conducted her research, long before COVID-19, one thing was abundantly clear: America was in the midst of a growing home health care crisis that wouldn’t end anytime soon.

According to CNBC, 75% of Americans over the age of 65 are living with multiple chronic health conditions, including diabetes and dementia. And with a surging aging population over 65 that’s expected to reach 88 million by 2050 and increased nursing home closures, America will continue to have a gaping shortage of qualified caregivers.

“That shortage impacts the quality of care seniors will receive,” adds Brooke.

Most often, the responsibility for home health falls in the hands of loved ones — spouses, grown children, and friends — who must assist with a range of needs. Those needs include administering medication and performing complex medical tasks to assisting with hygiene, meals, and transportation. The responsibilities can be extremely stressful and, especially for elderly spouses who provide care, it can lead to a decline in their own health.

For families who need additional help or patients who have no one to help, there’s a tremendous demand for paid caregivers. In fact, according to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, personal caregiving is one of the fastest growing professions in America.

But as those who provide the service know all too well, it pays poorly. The median hourly pay is just $11.57 per hour, according to the Bureau. And that presents a big challenge for home health care companies — retaining caregivers.

“Caregivers are some of the most wonderful, caring, and kind people. But even the best paid caregiver doesn’t make enough money to live on,” Brooke says. “Many have to work multiple jobs.”

Despite high turnover in the industry, Always Here Home Care hasn’t had that problem with its caregivers; in fact, some have been with the company since its inception. The company pays well above industry standard, offers a tiered compensation structure based on education and skill set, and provides work flexibility.

But Brooke recognizes that more needs to be done for her caregivers, many of whom are single parents struggling to meet expenses.

“Our goal has been to think of ways we could thank caregivers and help them with their challenges,” says Brooke.

With the Citizens Small Business Community Champion Award contest, she found the perfect opportunity.

Giving help and gratitude to those who help others

Since its inception in 2009, Always Here Home Care has undergone significant growth. About half of the company’s clients live in assisted living facilities and half in their own homes. The quality care has helped people remain where they’re comfortable rather than having to go to a nursing home.

Brooke believes her company offers a significant competitive advantage that sets it apart from others.

“Our caregivers are kind and generous people who give everything they have,” she says. “They’ve helped us create a better home care experience because they do it out of love.”

That kind of care is why Brooke doesn’t have a salesperson. All of the company’s growth has come organically through client referrals and its reputation.

To further her support, Brooke hopes to create a separate nonprofit organization called the Always Here Caregiver Advancement Fund, an entity dedicated to helping caregivers manage their unique financial challenges. Those challenges could range from paying childcare costs, buying books for school, or helping pay auto repair bills.

“More needs to be done to entice individuals to join the home health care industry to reward those who selflessly give so much to those around them,” she adds.

The $20,000 award from the 2020 Small Business Community Champion Award contest will help Brooke start and fund the nonprofit, which she hopes to supplement with matching contributions.

Her staff was ecstatic to find out about the nonprofit organization and the financial support its receiving.

“They know how hard they work,” Brooke says.

Finding a new normal in home health care

While Brooke works on starting up her new nonprofit to assist caregivers, she must also manage the challenges her company and her caregivers face amidst COVID-19.

She’s had to divide caregivers into two separate groups — those who work with COVID-19 patients and those who do not. It’s also created a challenge of matching caregivers to clients, as Brooke can no longer pair a caregiver with a client simply because they’ve worked well together in the past. She has found, however, that many of her caregivers want to work with COVID-19 patients, though their families may not feel comfortable with them doing so.

Today, amidst COVID-19, one of her biggest challenges is ensuring that all people have access to the care they require and deserve, regardless of their situation.

“There are a lot of people who need help right now,” explains Brooke. “Our goal is to ensure that those living with the virus, and those who have other conditions, will get the quality care they deserve without fear.”

There’s no question that Brooke Martindale has found the career joy and fulfillment she sought after leaving her work as a financial planner. Along her journey of starting her business, she’s helped build a better experience for clients as well as those who care for them. She also met her husband Terry, who’s the executive vice president of Always Here Home Care Boston. Brooke and Terry have two daughters, ages 5 and 3.

It’s fitting that she would find her family along her caring business journey, since family is what brought her there in the first place.

“In many ways, the business was like my first child. It took everything I had,” Brooke says. “But I’m proud to say that we’re delivering the quality care I wish existed for my grandmother.”

We’re made ready to help small businesses

Always Here Home Care is one of eight winners of the 2020 Small Business Community Champion Award contest. First- and second-place winners in the Boston, Philadelphia, Pittsburgh, and Cleveland markets received $20,000 and $10,000 prizes, respectively, to support their community initiatives.

Check out all the ways Citizens is supporting local businesses and our communities during the pandemic.