One of the goals of this website is to bring attention to the great alternatives to assisted living and nursing home options for mom or dad.

Adult Foster Care Homes Are A Great Alternative To Nursing Homes

For many years Adult Foster Care Homes have been looked at as places that care for adults with disabilities or those that needed mental health housing. However it has been a little known fact that many Adult Foster Care Homes or AFCH homes are places that only cater to elderly clients and can be a great alternative to nursing homes for many reasons.

You will see the terms Adult Foster Care Homes, Adult Family Care Homes, Board and Care Homes, Residential Care Homes, used interchangeably in referring to the facilities we are talking about. The difference is sometimes geographical, sometimes advertising preference. Each state will have it's own terms to apply to small homes which offer live in care for the elderly. To help avoid confusion we will strive to stick to Adult Family Care Home or Adult Foster Care Home as much as possible.

A few years ago my family and I decided to move my mother into an AFCH and here are some of the reasons why.

Great Reasons To Choose An Adult Foster Care Home

1. AFCHs are small in comparison to most assisted living facilities. The state of Michigan ((as an example)may be different in other states) puts them into 4 categories based on the number of residents they are licensed for. Those categories are Adult Family Care Home where the owners also reside at the residence with 1-6 beds for non-family members, small group homes 1-6 beds where the owner lives offsite, medium group homes 7-12 beds where the owner lives off site and large group homes 13-20 beds where the owner lives offsite.
   
   
2. In these smaller homes the residents get much more individual attention. They  offer intimacy and familiarity in a setting where individual preferences count. They can provide a very comfortable, less confusing real home environment, focusing on superior individualized care. The size affords less structure, fewer rules and the most importantly, a consistency in care and caregivers.
   
   
3. If the family lives in the home, as do the people who run the home my mother lives in, a true family like environment is fostered. Where my mother is living they have 3 children who interact with the ladies. They have a dog and a cat which add good pet therapy to the mix and round out the family. Not all family homes have children or pets.
   Family-Like Meal Settings.
   
   
4. Everything from doctor visits to prescriptions refills can be handled by the AFCH. Most homes have a house doctor and a podiatrist who make regular visits, which is great for those who cannot easily get out. Most have a hair stylist who will come in upon request, again making it easy for those who cannot get out easily.
   
   
5. Instead of being left to sit in a wheelchair all day or left in bed, most of these homes have recliners in a great room or common area for each resident and try to engage the residents in activities if they like. They share meals and holidays in a small family like atmosphere.
   
   
6. These homes are, from the outside, like any other house on the block. From the outside you can’t tell they are AFC homes and most I have visited are in the most beautiful surroundings you could ever want.

More and more, facilities are leaning toward consistent caregivers for residents, especially those residents with memory loss and confusion. - Esther Heerema, MSW

 
We will strive with this website to feature these homes so that you can take a look for yourself and decide if they are right for your loved one. Because sites like “A Place For Mom” and other placement sites work on a commission, they tend to recommend to clients the larger facilities as they pay a higher commission. The commission for A Place For Mom is about 1 -1½ times the residents monthly rent and this is charged to the facility so the larger the rent the more commission they make thus giving them more incentive to go with the larger facilities leaving these small homes, these gems, hidden and harder to find. We aim to change that by giving visitors here at Senior Home Search, listings of these beautiful homes so they can visit them in an area that is convenient to see what a great place they can be for mom or dad.

My mom is doing so well at the home she is at. She looks great, loves the food and is happy that the stress of day to day care for her is no longer on my sister and I. She said to me the other day, “Now when you come we can just relax and enjoy ourselves”.

I know we made the right choice for everyone involved. I hope that you will explore this option too.

Nancy Patterson
Senior Home Search