How Senior Support Care Began: Our Story

It is hard to believe that almost nine years have passed since we started Senior Support Care. When we first opened the company, it was just the two of us, Mikaela and Spencer, providing the care ourselves and trying to build a company that reflected what we both believed senior care should look like. We were best friends who had taken different paths into the field, but we shared the same passion for working with older adults and, perhaps more importantly, the same ideas about how people should be treated when they begin needing additional support.

For Mikaela, the connection to seniors started at home. Her nana and papa played a huge role in raising her, and growing up she rarely went a day without seeing them. She never thought much about her ability to connect with people who were decades older than her because it was simply something that came naturally. Working as a PSW gave Mikaela her first real look at senior care from the caregiver's perspective. Many of the visits were short, sometimes only an hour, and although there was enough time to complete the necessary care, she often felt as though there wasn't enough time to really be with the person. She enjoyed hearing about people's lives, learning their routines and finding ways to connect with clients who all had very different personalities and needs. Even when she was warned that someone could be difficult or that communication might be challenging, she usually found that taking the time to understand the person made all the difference.

It was also during this time that she began to understand how vulnerable it can feel to have a caregiver enter your life. Most of us spend decades taking care of ourselves, making our own decisions and doing things in our own way. Having someone suddenly come into your home to help you shower, get dressed, prepare meals or complete everyday tasks can be a major adjustment. Mikaela made a promise to herself early on that she would treat every person she cared for the way she would want someone to treat her own nana and papa. That meant listening to what they wanted, respecting their routines and making sure they still felt like they had a say in their own lives.

Eventually, Mikaela moved into a Client Care Manager position where she gained experience on the other side of home care, including coordinating services, hiring caregivers and helping families arrange support. It was an important part of her career and taught her a great deal about how a home care company operates, but she missed being directly involved with clients.

Spencer's journey into senior care began differently. Her interest in helping others started when she was only 12 years old, when she organized a summer camp to raise money for Haiti relief following the earthquake. She continued running the camp for three summers and raised more than $1,000 for the Red Cross. What started as a childhood fundraiser became the beginning of a much larger interest in community work and helping others, and Spencer eventually knew that she wanted to build a career around that in some way.

While studying Gerontology and Health Studies at McMaster University, Spencer became increasingly interested in working specifically with older adults. Her education, research and volunteer experiences allowed her to spend more time within senior communities and helped her understand aging from a much broader perspective. She also served as the Gerontology Coordinator with the Health and Aging Student Association, which gave her opportunities to organize community events and work directly with seniors.

What stood out to Spencer throughout those experiences was how much there was to learn from the people she was supporting. Every person had lived an entire life before she met them, and everyone had their own stories, experiences, preferences and outlook on aging. Working with seniors taught her that providing good care was not simply about meeting someone's physical needs. It also meant listening to them, advocating for them and making sure their voice did not become less important simply because they needed help.

By the time we decided to start a company together, we had both reached many of the same conclusions through very different experiences. We wanted to provide senior care that allowed enough time for genuine relationships to develop, and we wanted families to feel that the person coming into their loved one's home actually knew them. We believed that companionship, conversation and consistency were important parts of care, rather than extras that only happened if there happened to be enough time left at the end of a visit.

In 2018, we opened Senior Support Services of Southern Ontario, which would later become Senior Support Care. In the beginning, we did almost everything ourselves. We provided the care, spoke with families, managed schedules and learned what it meant to own a business while also trying to make sure our clients received the type of support we had envisioned. Being the caregivers ourselves during those early years had a major influence on the way the company developed because our policies and expectations were not based only on what looked good from an office. They were shaped by what we were seeing and experiencing in people's homes.

Senior Support Care looks very different today. We have a team of caregivers supporting clients throughout Hamilton and the surrounding communities, and as owners our roles have naturally changed as the company has grown. We cannot personally provide every visit anymore, but we have tried to hold onto the parts of those early years that mattered most to us. We still believe that knowing the person is just as important as knowing the care they require. A care plan may tell you that someone needs help with meals, mobility or personal care, but it does not necessarily tell you that they love a particular type of music, that they prefer their coffee a certain way, that they enjoy going outside every afternoon or that they become frustrated when people try to do things for them that they are still capable of doing themselves. Those details are often what turn a caregiving visit into a relationship.

We also know that families are placing an enormous amount of trust in us when they ask Senior Support Care to become involved. Inviting a caregiver into someone's home, retirement residence or long-term care home is personal, particularly when a loved one is living with dementia, experiencing changes in their independence or going through a difficult transition. We never want to lose sight of what it feels like to be on the family side of that decision.

One of the things Mikaela wrote in our original company blog was that she wanted to treat every client as though they were her own nana or papa. Almost nine years later, that is still one of the simplest ways to explain the standard we want for Senior Support Care. We want our caregivers to take the time to listen, to notice the little things, to respect the person they are supporting and to understand that sometimes a conversation, a walk or a good laugh can be just as meaningful to someone's day as the practical care they receive.

We started Senior Support Care because we loved working with seniors and believed there was room to provide care in a more personal way. The company has grown considerably since the days when it was just the two of us providing the care, but the reason behind it has remained surprisingly similar. We want older adults to feel supported without feeling as though their independence, personality or voice has disappeared, and we want their families to know that the person caring for someone they love genuinely cares about getting to know them.

Nine years later, we still feel incredibly fortunate that this is what we get to do.