As a SitByCare health sitter, it’s best to start each session with a plan. Otherwise, you may find that you fall back on doing the same activity repeatedly during your health sitting sessions, which can become routine. Each session should feel inspired, which is why we’re providing a range of ideas to help you make the most of each session with the companion you’re matched to. SitByCare wants each patient to receive the best possible care and companionship. You have the chance to create a special and unique experience for your companion. Below are some tips to help you plan activities for your next health sitting session:
Get to Know Your Companion
Would you like it if you had plans with a friend and they assumed you wanted to do something you didn’t? Probably not—and the same goes for companions. It’s important to ask questions and take the time to explore their interests, likes and dislikes. Maybe there is a hobby they enjoy doing and if they stopped because of a condition, think of ways to alter, or modify it as a creative solution.
Get Creative
The imagination is a powerful tool. Especially if companions have limited mobility. Can you create a story together? How about starting a niche film club? There are many ways for companions to participate despite physical impairments that don’t include card games or puzzles. Additionally, having a creative connection will deepen your relationship and enhance each health sitting session.
Explore the Outdoors
If mobility is not an issue, get outside! Nature is a fantastic environment to help energize your health sitting session. Whether it’s doing some gardening together, picking flowers to dry and press, going for a walk or leading a meditation in a quiet setting, there are many outdoor possibilities to keep each meeting fresh and different.
Get Feedback
After each session, talk to your companion about the highs and lows of your time together. What parts excited them? What could have been improved? When you consistently ask for feedback, it shows that you care about your time together and that effort can make all the difference to your companion. It also serves to help you become an even better health sitter.
Connection and happiness are at the core of each health sitter and companion relationship. By taking the time to get to know and understand one another, making room for creativity, and checking in, you will make a difference in someone else’s life and deepen your own capacity for compassion and empathy.
Keep the Connection Going
You know that everyone has a story that deserves to be heard. Our health sitters are joyful people who genuinely love to hear what other people have to say. You don’t need to be an extrovert, but you do need to like conversating over shared interests or in a shared language. When they’re talking, your attention is 100% on them. And when you’re talking, speak to your companion as if they’re your best friend.
Having experienced medical conditions can make someone uniquely well-suited to become a health sitter. Someone who beat cancer will know what it is like to have to go through tough cancer treatments—as their companion may be going through now. Someone who underwent a major surgery can relate to a surgical patient companion about how tough it is fasting before an operation and how boring it can be to be by yourself recovering. Through the SitByCare platform, sitters can share in their profiles if they have these experiences to help better match companions.
Keep Calm and Carry On
Even though SitByCare heath sitters provide non-medical companionship, working in a medical or long-term care facility means unexpected things sometimes happen! The ideal health sitter should be calm under pressure and always solution-oriented. If something is happening to your companion, get help from a health care professional as quickly as possible.
A good health sitter will be patient, as many companions are living with medical conditions or disabilities that can limit their mobility, affect their hearing or sight, or affect their energy levels.
Keep It Professional
When your companion sees you arrive (on time, of course!), they should be able to notice your self-confidence and recognize that you are here to care for them. Well-dressed and well-groomed, you look like you’re ready to roll with whatever challenge comes your way. Exuding confidence will not only make you feel better, but it’ll also make your companion feel better. There’s a chance they’re nervous! It’s part of your job to make the companion comfortable and happy with your companionship–and that starts with a smile.
The go-getters who excel as health sitters with SitByCare may even decide to become a full-time professional health sitter. Luckily, SitByCare has everything you need to run your independent sitter business from the palm of your hand!
These are some of the personal qualities that will make a caring and successful health sitter.
Companionship is the medicine anyone can give, so get started today with SitByCare to make a difference.
