News & Updates
Angela Jelley: In-home Care Provider and Advocate
SEIU 503 in-home care workers take many different paths. Some work for a single family member, while others support a few different clients across a varied weekly schedule. Some maintain a full-time job in addition to their homecare commitments, while others provide 60 hours of care work a week.
And then there’s the type of care a worker may provide. Aging adults, children with intellectual disabilities, wheelchair users, and veterans are among those supported by in-home care workers.
Angela Jelley has provided care for many clients in her long career as a credentialed homecare worker and personal support worker, and currently works for 8 different clients across a 70-mile range from Roseburg to Reedsport, Oregon.
When we asked Angela in a recent call how she maintains such a large care network, she responded simply: “Caregiving and advocacy for disabled children and disabled veterans is just a part of my life.”
But it’s not quite so straightforward as that. Angela goes to great lengths to care for her clients and is careful to explain that services in rural Oregon can be scarce, and that a scarcity of care professionals can put lives in jeopardy.
“For the clients I specialize in (disabled veterans and special needs children), there’s very little availability of in-home care support. One year there was a snowstorm, and I got a call from a client’s parents saying that all 3 of her other caregivers were snowed in. Now, this client requires some very specialized care that not anybody can do, so I had to hike in and then ended up staying there another 2 days to wait out the snow. It was very stressful, but you know that’s what us homecare workers do to provide quality of care.”
The subject of “quality of care” came up often when we talked to Angela one morning, after she had finished a night shift. As she sees it, in-home care gives clients the opportunity to take part in their care, while also enjoying the comforts of their own home.
“I get a checklist of care that I am allowed to provide, and I don’t break any of the rules as far as that goes, but I can individualize the care that I give. I once cared for this gentleman who said, ‘Can you not come in looking like a nurse? It makes my neighbors feel sorry for me.’ So, I ran home, changed out of my scrubs and into some blue jeans and cowboy boots and headed back over.
“Now, that was really small, but it showed him respect and honor. That’s what we can do in homecare that you cannot do in agencies or institutions where you have to wear scrubs or do things in a particular way.”
Angela makes these sorts of choices every day and went on to tell us about several other collaborations that have come out of her care philosophy, including a 501c3 nonprofit directed by one of her child clients and a memorial garden she built with the family of a former patient.
“I wish people would understand I am not a glorified housekeeper. I am a well-educated person— I used to work at a hospital — but I have chosen purposefully to get paid less so that I can give high quality care to all of my patients.”
Because she’s chosen in-home care, Angela estimates that she gets paid a third less than she would in a residential care facility, and so she has taken on yet another job: traveling the nation advocating for more resources for in-home care providers and their consumers.
“I just never thought that somebody like me would ever have a platform in politics like this. I’ve tried to educate politicians that homecare can save them tax dollars while also increasing the quality of life in their communities. So, to me [homecare] is just common sense.”
Angela Jelley serves on the Board of Directors for Carewell SEIU 503, a RISE Partnership program devoted to homecare training and benefits education. She currently resides in Roseburg, Oregon, but is hoping to move to the coast so she can be closer to some of her 6 children and 18 grandchildren (and 1 great-grandchild)!