Becoming a Caregiver

It began as a few calls a week. Now it keeps a calendar of its own, and it does not have to be kept by one person.

Ongoing responsibility for the care or finances of another adult, most often a parent or partner. It rarely has a clear start or end, and it takes its hours from whatever was already there.

How we work

What changes

Three questions arrive early in caregiving, and they are easier to answer before a crisis than during one.

Who can act

A durable power of attorney lets someone handle a parent’s finances if the parent no longer can, and a health-care proxy does the same for medical decisions. Both have to be signed while the parent is still able to sign them.

What care will cost

Care at home or in a residence can run for years. Long-term care cover, the parent’s own assets and the family’s support are weighed together, so the cost is planned into the income instead of found later.

Who carries it

Care often falls to one sibling, along with the hours and the lost work. Agreeing early how the time and the money are shared aims to keep the load, and the family, in balance.

What it strains, what it draws on

Caregiving draws down the reserves a person relies on in a hard season, and it can bring out skills and people they did not know they had.

Becoming aCaregiverStrainsResilienceFinancial SecurityCommunity ConnectionDraws onCapabilitySocial Network

Strains: the parts of a life this Transition tends to draw down. Draws on: the parts it can strengthen, and that help carry it. Both come from the Human Wealth ontology.

How the ontology maps Transitions

Who works on it

The work is shared across these Services, alongside the family’s attorney and accountant. Your counsel stays; we keep the plan in one piece.

Common questions

Before they are needed, while the person who signs them can still do so. Once someone can no longer sign, the family may have to ask a court for authority instead, which is slower and public.

Start with a conversation.

You do not need a balance sheet or a date. Tell us what is changing, and we will tell you plainly whether we are the right office for it.

All transitions