Kind Hands Senior Care: It’s like living at home

When seeking living arrangements for an aging loved one, we all would like a secure environment that feels like home.

Kind Hands Senior Care Homes, in Yorkville offers just that, in an actual home setting.

The residential care home offers regular senior care, respite care and hospice care, says Patrick Skinner, who owns and runs Kind Hands with his wife Linda. Kind Hands partners with home health agencies to provide physical and occupational therapy and rehab services, as well.

“We have quite a few services available that people often think you can only get in a nursing home,” says Skinner.

Instead, life at Kind Hands begins with two houses, and caring staff that’s more like family.

“We purposely have less than eight people in two ranch-style homes, so the ratio of care is better,” says Skinner. “The ratio of care in a nursing home is 1 caregiver to 25 or 30 people. Our ratio is never higher than 1 to 5.”

One home houses five residents and the other houses three, of an available four. Care is 24 hours.

While the cost of a nursing home averages $220 to $250 a day, Kind Hands’ cost is $135 to $140 per day. “That’s 35-50 percent less than institutional care, and it’s a group home setting,” says Skinner.

The calling to serve seniors came to Skinner through a personal trial, while he served people in another capacity, as a church pastor for 20 years.

“Then my first wife got breast cancer at 42 and passed away at 46,” says Skinner. “I was able to see first hand the value of hospice care.” Skinner then served seven years as a hospice chaplain. He married Linda, who has 30 years experience as a home health visiting nurse and is currently a wound care nurse, and in 2012 the couple opened Kind Hands.

The experience is quite rare among senior residential living because there are fewer people to compete with for care, notes Skinner. “People’s needs get met more quickly. It’s a more family-oriented situation, like the houses they came from. We have ‘house moms’ who are at the houses for 12 days in a row. Then they’re off for 2 days.

“People realize that we really love our seniors and we take care of them,” says Skinner. “We have a compassion for their needs. We remember their birthdays with the cakes they like and help them feel as much at home as possible.”

There is a natural ebb and flow in senior care, with the average person residing in a care facility around 3.5 years, the final years of their lives, explains Skinner.

“Our goal is to make that as easy as possible for them and their loved ones. People trust us because my wife has the medical expertise and I have the hospice experience,” he says. “We believe we have the sensitivity and spirituality that help seniors be at peace with their lives.”

Kind Hands Senior Care Homes

124 Naden Ct., and 112 E. Kendall, Yorkville

630-508-8357 | www.kindhands.me