When we say our Care Coaches are highly experienced in their fields, we mean it. We’re not giving health-savvy internet researchers credit for something that is only rightfully due to trained and seasoned professionals.
In fact, it is the Care Team who deserves all the acknowledgment we can muster because they are truly the ones who make Cariloop the caregiver support service that it is. Without them—their unique experiences and their dedication to their trade—we would be just like every other care company in this space.
Primarily, our Care Team earned their credentials well before they found Cariloop—and they have a great amount of field experience to apply to their roles here as Care Coaches. These individuals have been on the front lines of healthcare, and education, and served in many other public health services roles before. They are experienced from years of specialized service in their industries—in the United States and Canada.
Cariloop has in-house, full-time employees serving as Care Coaches to guide our members through their caregiving journey. Whether a caregiver lives in and needs support in the United States or Canada, a Care Coach with extensive experience in and knowledge of the country’s unique care systems will be there to support them. We are very proud of our Care Coaches—allow us to explain.
To share the breadth of their expertise, we’ve provided a list of their industry credentials below, with specialties grouped aside from our primary areas of service: health and education. More information on what each of these credentials covers, and how they serve members and cases, is explained in detail further down in this guide. As of the date of publication, our Care Coaching staff includes the following certifications, degrees and licenses:
Premium Caregiving Support from Licensed Professionals
We believe employing credentialed and experienced professionals is one way that Cariloop goes beyond other caregiving benefits. Our Care Coaches’ expertise produces more thoughtful and better outcomes for the caregivers we serve. Anyone can search online and eventually find good resources to assist in solving a problem, but meaningful caregiving support requires so much more than that.
Since Cariloop doesn’t provide clinical services, medical or financial advice, our credentialed Care Coaches support in ways that enhance your existing benefits and providers and/or offer options with guidance to help you make the best decision for yourself. Below, we’ve provided more detail about how the licensure, credentialing and experience of our diverse care team directly connect to the level of service we provide through the Cariloop benefit.
How Healthcare Experience Helps Our Care Coaches Serve You Better
With healthcare systems that are so fragmented, having seasoned healthcare professionals in your network is highly attractive. It takes years of experience navigating healthcare to become adept enough to then steer others toward their best options. That’s one reason why Cariloop invests in licensed healthcare professionals to serve our members.
Nurses have always been focused on care.
Registered nurses (RNs) provide and coordinate care for patients, provide education on various health conditions and give advice and emotional support to patients and their families.
Licensed Practical Nurses (LPNs) are the more hands-on members of a nursing team. They monitor patients’ health and keep them clean, comfortable, and cared for. LPNs are often responsible for checking blood pressure, administering basic patient care, including changing bandages and inserting catheters, and providing basic comfort for patients.
Nurses have a wide variety of experiences from working in clinics, hospitals and care facilities that directly feed into their work to support Cariloop members with new health diagnoses, major health changes and navigating the healthcare system. As Care Coaches, our licensed nurses use their compassion and ability to assess as they interact with members.
Occupational Therapists know how to get creative.
Occupational Therapists (OTs) have studied and tried more adaptive therapies and treatments than most of us could ever even imagine. Occupational therapy (OT) teaches you how to adapt—with applications of any kind of task at school, work, or in your home.
Certified Occupational Therapist Assistant/Licensed (COTA/L) can provide occupational therapy services under the supervision of a registered occupational therapist.
In caregiving scenarios, Occupational Therapists and OT Assistants can help tremendously with:
- Providing movement modification outlines to help with common tasks that have become challenging
- Informing ways to discuss with a provider daily movement habits to aid in recovery, building strength, and mobility
- Finding creative ways to better engage combative patients for their therapies
- Helping you understand your treatment plan and keep you on track to results
Certified health workers are master navigators.
These are truly advocates for individual and community health in all regards. Certified Health Workers (CHWs) provide referral and follow-up services, coordinate care, and identify and help enroll eligible individuals in federal, state, and local private or nonprofit health and human services programs.
If you’ve ever wondered who really knows the ins and outs of the various health systems, certified health workers are the ones. At Cariloop, these professionals are crafty at navigating nuances and finding answers.
Various health specialties give our care team added dimension.
We employ additional Care Coaches with credentials in specialties like:
- Health Care Life Coaches (HCLC-C), who help members implement lifestyle changes, be intentional with self-care, and create plans for healthy habits to stick.
- Certified Integrative Nutrition Health Coaches (C-INHC), who are skilled at coaching members toward achieving defined goals for their health and overall wellness.
- Chronic Care Management Professionals (CCM), who rally around members needing comprehensive care planning for chronic illnesses, supporting coordination and planning of a variety of services and therapies.
What Licensed Education Professionals Bring to the Coaching Team
Licensed teachers offer sage guidance to members.
Caring for students ages K-12, either in public or private schools, is what teachers show up to do, day after day. No classroom looks the same, just like no two children—and their educational needs—are the same. A great deal of development happens between kindergarten and graduation, creating a constant need for insights into the expansive realm of primary and secondary education.
Our licensed teachers serve our members with expert guidance in:
- Understanding how to navigate learning development delays
- Navigating the school system
- Exploring all possible school options for a child
- Understanding secondary education opportunities and requirements
ESL teachers are skilled in simplifying the complex.
English as a Second Language Teachers help English language learners become proficient in English skills. These include reading comprehension, writing, listening and speaking skills. ESL instructors typically teach classrooms of students, but they may also work one-on-one.
Our Education Coaches who are also ESL teachers excel in serving our members whose native language is not English, and who may need additional support in navigating the technical language of healthcare, legal documents, etc.
Various education specialties provide enhanced knowledge for our Care Team.
Education support takes many, many forms—and so should our breadth of expertise on the care team. Specialty degrees in education we have in-house include:
- Early Childhood-12 Principals, who are all about operations and management, from curriculum to staff and everything in between.
- Special Education Teachers (SPEDs), who are trained to aid families with students who have different levels of disabilities in learning, visual, or hearing.
- The degreed School Counselors on our team focus on helping students build healthy coping skills through individual or small group instruction.
All of our experienced Education Coaches take special care in serving as support for parents of children who are challenged by the education system. The heart of caring beats loudly through these Cariloop representatives, and our members are treated with empathy and respect.
Specialty Licenses that Further Enhance Our Care Team
Social Workers and counselors offer balance in emotional circumstances.
The Licensed Social Workers (LSW, LMSW, LCSW, LBSW) on the care team at Cariloop have experience in helping to change behavior or cope with difficult situations that caregivers find themselves in. Our Licensed Professional Counselors (LPC) are trained in treating mental, behavioral, and emotional problems and disorders, and can serve to support the emotional weight that caregiving imparts on many.
Real examples of how our licensed social workers and professional counselors support member needs include:
- Searching and vetting trusted counselors for a loved one (adult and peds)
- Navigating difficult conversations with a loved one
- Exploring solutions for mental health needs, both for the caregiver and their families
- Directing members to resources to better help them understand diagnoses
With dementia and brain diseases on the rise, more specialized help will be needed.
Certified Dementia Practitioners (CDPs) are those who have demonstrated achievement and specialized training in the areas of Alzheimer’s and other dementia care. Caregiving benefits that have Certified Dementia Practitioners are needed to support the sheer volume of employees who are dealing with dementia cases at home.
The staggering numbers below are current from The Alzheimer’s Association:
- 1 in 3 seniors dies with some form of dementia
- The lifetime risk for Alzheimer’s at age 45 is 1 in 5 for women and 1 in 10 for men
- Over 11 million Americans provide unpaid care for people with Alzheimer’s or other dementias
Real examples of how our dementia practitioners support member needs include:
- Supporting caregivers with new or worsening symptoms of dementia in a loved one
- Understanding new diagnosis, next steps
- Finding and vetting proper facilities for loved ones with dementia
- How to talk to a loved one who may be showing signs of declining health
Additional specialties that make the Cariloop Care Team unique.
We employ additional Care Coaches with credentials in unique specialties that give our team insights and support mechanisms like no other caregiving benefit. Our Care Team is always expanding to include new disciplines and areas of expertise, like:
- Disability Income Associates (DIA), who have a keen understanding of employer-sponsored disability programs, ranging from sick leave benefits to long-term disability income plans, including their tax consequences and tax planning considerations.
- Change Management Professionals (CMPs), who have mastered proven techniques to facilitate smooth organizational change. They provide a business mind to unique caregiving situations and offer insights on navigating rapidly changing situations.
- Licensed Nursing Home Administrators (LNHA), who are experienced in planning, organizing, and supervising the delivery of care to residential patients, are instrumental advisors in member cases involving elder care.
- Oncology Patient Navigator-Certified Generalist (OPN-CG), who is trained to provide individualized assistance to patients and families affected by cancer to improve access to healthcare services.
- Certified in American Case Management (ACM-SW), who are case managers committed to uphold the highest professional and ethical standards in the US.
- Licensed Chemical Dependency Counselors (LCDC), who are experienced in helping individuals with mental, emotional, or substance abuse problems, including abuse of alcohol, tobacco, and/or other drugs. This expertise is useful for a care team as so many caregivers can end up with substance abuse problems due to the heavy demands of caring for another person.
Resource coordinators support our credentialed care coaches behind the scenes.
Each case at Cariloop is led by a Care Coach, who are the credentialed and experienced Care Team leaders. We also utilize resource coordinators to support with the due diligence, research, and discovery work needed for many cases. This frees up valuable time for the Care Coach to do more challenging work on behalf of our members and their loved ones. When there are complex cases that need a diverse team of experienced support, we pair multiple Care Coaches together to triage the members’ needs.
Our Care Team understands first-hand how overwhelming caregiving demands can be. The emotional drain of making decisions and caring for a loved one is often heavy for the caregiver. Yet, no one notices that or emphasizes how important it is to care for the caregiver.
It is our mission to help relieve the stress and anxiety often experienced with caregiving. It’s our policy to treat people as people, seek first to understand, and meet each member with compassion in the moments that matter. We hope our Care Team and their expertise helps millions of members lighten the weight of their caregiving journey.
If your company doesn’t have caregiving benefits, drop us a note so we can start a conversation about the care support needs of your people.