Today’s business management approach has thrown up many barriers to care giving. This is not to imply that money and accountability are not important, but that accountants are servants to marginalized people just as we are. In many of today’s agencies those “served” are merely seen as cost lines and money management takes precedence over helping persons to feel safe and loved.

We need to simplify and by simplifying we will find the truth. Care giving simplification involves:

  • Teaching caregivers to be in the moment;
  • In bad moments this equates with forgiveness;
  • In all the good moments this involves a series of accidental and intentional encounters throughout the day focused on safe and loved;
  • The accidental encounters are merely brief moments of passing by and encompass a wave, a wink, a smile, a name, a thumbs up, maybe a hug if there is time, a whispering of “You are so good.”
  • The intentional encounters are a bit more planned in the sense of the caregiver takes a chunk of time—a minute or two or a half hour or more. The time depends. It should be structured in the day with the only purpose being to give a memory that the person is safe when with us.
  • The key is to stay in the moment. Joy is found in the moment