Respite care for family caregivers
The person doing the caring is usually the one closest to breaking, and the last one to ask for anything.
Respite care is temporary care provided by someone else so the family caregiver can rest, work, travel, attend to their own health, or simply be somewhere that is not the house. It can be a few hours a week, a full day, or several days in a row.
At home it is provided by a caregiver from a home care agency. It can also be provided in an adult day program or, for longer breaks, as a short stay in a residential community.
Serenity Care Partners provides in-home respite care across Greater Cincinnati. There is no minimum number of hours.
What Serenity provides
Serenity Care Partners provides in-home respite care as non-medical home care under Ohio Department of Health licence 4491HHN — personal care, supervision, meals, housekeeping and companionship while you are away. We do not provide skilled nursing or medication administration, and we do not operate residential respite facilities. If your situation needs either, we will connect you with a local provider at no cost.
What respite actually covers
Respite is not a different kind of care. It is the same care, done by someone else, so that you can stop for a while. A caregiver comes to the house and takes over what you normally do: the bathing, the meals, the reminders, the watching, the company.
The length is whatever the break needs to be. Four hours on a Tuesday so you can go to your own doctor. Every weekday morning so you can hold a job. A weekend so you can go to your niece’s wedding. A week so you can have the surgery you have been postponing for two years.
What makes it work is reliability. A break you cannot count on is not a break — you spend it waiting for the phone to ring. That is the argument for a consistent, assigned caregiver team over a rotating cast.
What an in-home respite caregiver does:
- Personal care — bathing, dressing, grooming, toileting
- Meals prepared and eaten, and fluids kept up
- Supervision, including cueing and redirection for someone with dementia
- Light housekeeping and laundry, so you do not come back to more work
- Companionship and activity, not just watching
- A call to you if something changes — and not a call if nothing does
Why caregivers wait too long to use it
Almost every family caregiver we meet has the same two reasons. The first is guilt — a belief that handing over the care, even for an afternoon, is a form of abandonment. The second is that arranging it feels like one more task on a list that is already impossible.
The guilt is worth arguing with directly. Family caregiving is sustained over years, not days, and the arrangements that last are the ones with relief built in. The ones that collapse are the ones where a spouse or adult child carried everything until their own health failed — at which point the person being cared for loses their caregiver entirely, usually at no notice.
Respite is not the beginning of giving up. In most cases it is the specific thing that makes staying home possible for longer.
How families pay for respite in Ohio
Respite is paid for the same ways as other non-medical home care: privately, through a long-term care insurance policy, through VA benefits for eligible veterans and surviving spouses, or through the Ohio Medicaid PASSPORT waiver. Serenity is a contracted provider with the Council on Aging of Southwestern Ohio and accepts PASSPORT.
Ohio also operates the National Family Caregiver Support Program through Area Agencies on Aging, which can provide limited respite funding for eligible caregivers. The Council on Aging of Southwestern Ohio is the place to ask about that in this region.
Medicare does not pay for respite care at home. The one exception is respite provided as part of the Medicare hospice benefit.
Starting small
Most families who are hesitant start with one short, regular block — the same few hours on the same day each week — rather than a large or open-ended commitment. It gives everyone, including the person receiving care, a chance to get used to a new face on a predictable rhythm.
There is no minimum number of hours at Serenity, so a small start is a real option rather than something we talk you out of.
Gloria Aflya, RN, BSN, our CEO and RN Clinical Manager, personally conducts the initial assessment for every new client before any caregiver is assigned — including for respite. She will want to know your routine, not just the client’s, because the point of respite is that it fits your life.
Questions families ask
- What is respite care?
- Respite care is temporary care provided by someone else so that a family caregiver can take a break. It can be a few hours, a full day, or several consecutive days, and can be provided at home, in an adult day program, or as a short residential stay.
- How much respite care can we book?
- There is no minimum number of hours at Serenity Care Partners. Families use anything from one short block a week to daily coverage, and the schedule can change as circumstances do.
- Does Medicare pay for respite care?
- Medicare does not cover respite care at home. The exception is respite provided under the Medicare hospice benefit. In Ohio, respite is more commonly paid for privately, through long-term care insurance, through VA benefits, or through the Ohio Medicaid PASSPORT waiver.
- Will the same caregiver come each time?
- Serenity assigns a small, consistent team rather than sending whoever is available, so the person receiving care sees familiar faces. Consistency matters most in dementia care, where an unfamiliar person can undo the calm of an entire day.
Tell us what you need
One short form. If it is something we provide, we will help directly. If it is not, we will connect you with a trusted local provider — free.