Kevin Parks, a licensed Assisted Living Facility (ALF) Administrator, has spent many years in the senior housing industry, serving seniors in various capacities, from Community Relations to Executive Director. As a senior advocate and active member of several organizations focused on improving quality of life for seniors, Kevin champions quality of life issues in senior housing and recognizes the importance of offering choice and involving seniors in the decision-making process when a more supportive environment is being considered.

How A Helping Hand came to be:
During the past several years, Kevin has spent countless hours meeting with hundreds of seniors and their loved ones as they assessed their senior housing options, as well as the plethora of other challenges facing them in their “golden years”.

However, despite the value of his guidance and advocacy during this difficult phase in the lives of his residents and their loved ones, he never had the opportunity to provide them a truly objective, unbiased, senior housing option that was a “perfect fit” for their individual situation.

Although there are several web-based referral placement agencies advertising the type of service Kevin knew was needed, what he found was a remote, impersonal approach designed to do little more than earn a commission for the “senior specialists” working for the agencies.

In fact, Kevin discovered the “service” basically consisted of the following:
• The senior, or more often one of their adult children, submits an online inquiry form.

• If the senior has resources to afford an assisted living facility (typically $1,600+/month), a representative from the agency contacts the referral and gathers information about the needs of the senior.

• The representative immediately faxes and/or e-mails the “inquiry/referral form” to every assisted living facility in which they are contracted with to inform them of the potential referral (and to ensure they get credit, and subsequent commission, if the referral chooses that assisted living facility).

• The representative periodically follows-up with the inquirer and the assisted living facility to determine which facility was chosen, and then follows-up with the assisted living facility until the referral fee is collected.

Kevin and his staff in the assisted living facilities received a large number of reportedly “hot” leads, via fax and/or e-mail from these agencies, only to discover the majority of them were either not medically or financially appropriate or, more often then not, the facility was just not a good “fit” for one reason or another.  This led to a discouraged facility staff but, more important, frustrated seniors receiving calls from all local facilities, inviting them in for a tour. This defeats the purpose of a senior housing advisor! Kevin knew there had to be a more personalized, efficient way to give the seniors and their loved ones, as well as the senior housing facilities, a service that addressed the needs of everyone involved.

So, A Helping Hand Senior Care Services, was formed. We are a local personalized senior housing referral placement service focused on ensuring seniors and their loved ones receive the objective guidance needed to help choose the best senior housing option available for their specific situation.

What sets us apart is our ability to provide the personal, individualized attention needed so seniors (or anyone helping a senior) explore housing options are encouraged to call our office at (804) 486-9177 to discuss your specific situation.