Struggling to care for aging parents while juggling your own family? Today, Bina Coleman discusses the challenges of being part of the sandwich generation and the importance of finding support groups and resources. She also talks about the future of Parent Projects, a company that helps families stay organized and communicate with each other about caring for elderly loved ones, including the use of artificial intelligence to help families better care for their aging parents. Don’t miss out! Learn how to make caring for your aging parents a little easier.

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How Parent Projects Can Help You Care For Elderly Loved Ones With Bina Colman

Hello and welcome to the podcast, Growing Older with Gusto. My name is Gail Zugerman, and my husband, Charlie, likes to joke that his name is Gusto. But actually, this podcast is created to show people in younger generations how to grow older in a positive and productive way by having guests on the show who are doing just that or helping others to do just that. Today, we have an episode about the sandwich generation, and I don’t necessarily mean those of you who grew up eating subs or hoagies or Philadelphia cheesesteaks, whatever.

So, our guest today is a younger woman named Bina Coleman, who’s going to tell us how she started her business out of seeing a need in the marketplace for balancing a full-time career, raising young kids, and having elderly parents who had health care needs of their own. It is a juggling act, one that’s been addressed by the media, but Bina Coleman saw an opportunity, and she’s very busy with her own life. She lives outside of Phoenix, Arizona, and she managed to find the time to create her original business, which was called Compassionate Callers, and it’s recently morphed into Parent Projects, which she’ll talk about. But it’s a business targeted to those people who need support with numerous activities that are busy, and her business was set up to really help people who are in the sandwich generation have peace of mind and know that their elderly parents are living a good older life while they maintain theirs. She also has a degree in gerontology and over a decade of experience in the field of elderly care.

So, I’d like to get started; she has so much to tell us. She has a great story. So welcome to the show, Bina.

Thank you for that introduction. It was very good. It was a great introduction. It’s all true. There are so many of us.

Right, so start us out. Tell our listeners about your story, about your background, and your personal experiences that led to the development of Parent Projects.

I grew up here in Phoenix, and my parents actually owned the first four franchises of Home Instead Senior Care. I was in sixth grade, so in 1996, they were literally one of the first home care agencies in Arizona or Phoenix, and now there’s over 500, I want to say. Growing up, this is all we heard: the elder world, the seniors, the caregivers, so my brother and I just knew this world when none of our friends did.

The Sandwich-Generation Caregiver

When it was time for me to get my degree, it was kind of a no-brainer to do gerontology, though it’s extremely niche, and there’s not many of us. But fast forward, I am married, I have two little kids; they’re still little. So, even back when my father was living in a memory care facility and then passed, they were even younger. But I truly became a sandwich generation caregiver because I was working full time. I was doing sales for home care, home health, and hospice, and I was also visiting my dad, like I said, in a memory care unit.

We were lucky enough to place them in a beautiful place in Scottsdale, so that was wonderful, truthfully. But, you know, I’d show up with both kids and just think there’s something missing in this continuum of care for everybody, memory or not, or whatever maybe they’re going through. I thought there’s something missing, and that’s where Compassionate Callers actually really came from.

What a valuable service. Really, it’s amazing. Keep going; tell us about the services.

Compassionate Callers

So, I’ll tell you about Compassionate Callers and then kind of how it merged. Compassionate Callers is a business where we’re able to call people up to five times a day, seven days a week, and that could be for anything. I mean, truly, just because it’s so easy, it really did start with medication reminders and meal reminders, but really morphs into just anything you can imagine. Like I said, it’s not just for people who have memory issues or anything like that because one of our clients was a younger man who was very depressed, and getting him out of bed was something, that’s why we called him. So, there’s just a lot of reasons why these up to five phone calls a day, seven days a week can really make a difference in somebody’s life, and that’s what we were doing with Compassionate Callers, and this was Monday through Sunday. So, let’s say an adult child lived out of state, and they were worried their mom wasn’t even getting up or wasn’t eating lunch; we stepped in and took over those calls.

I met the founder of Parent Projects, and we really hit it off. We really felt we were working towards the same goal and innovative. We wanted the best for everybody in the family situation.

I just have one question going back to when we were talking about Compassionate Callers. When you called, and when you had your calling service, and let’s say somebody was out of state and they had hired your company to do that. Now, did you have the ability to go actually to where they were living and help out, or call somebody, another resource, to help them? How did that work?

It’s a great question. So yes, I’m based in Phoenix. It was a nationwide service because nothing was “hands-on.” So, they truly were dedicated phone calls. However, with your other part of the question, resources are my favorite thing in the world. Anybody who needs any resource, I feel ‘I know who to reach out to,’ or ‘what kind of person.’ If I don’t know someone in that industry, but I know you need a placement agent in Alabama, “All right, let’s find you a placement agent in Alabama.” I like to really give those resources out because there are so many available that people just don’t know about, and I think that’s the biggest hindrance of really caring for the aging population or anyone. It is how to use and utilize the resources that are out there, and so I love people to know about them.

The biggest hindrance to caring for the aging population or anyone is how to use and utilize the resources that are out there.

Parent Projects

So, Parent Projects is a wonderful service. You can log on to parentprojects.com. You create a whole project, as in the name, it can be for a loved one, your aging parent, your aging great aunt, whatever the situation. Let’s say that you just feel overwhelmed, you don’t understand when this doctor appointment is, or you want to upload stuff, we have it all for you. You can be organized. You can upload all insurances. You can have a calendar to mark all doctor appointments or any kind of appointments.

The reason why I love that so much is because let’s say there’s a sibling in California, one in New York. They’re obviously not going to be together too often, unfortunately, right? But this allows them to get on the same platform and really say, ‘Okay, look, it’s marked in the calendar that mom has an eye appointment on the 16th.’ All right, great, we all know that, and we’re able to say to her then, ‘How did your eye appointment go? Who’s taking you to your eye appointment?’ Really get down to the brass tacks of that singular appointment just by looking at the platform that you guys have together. So, it’s a wonderful service.

That’s great. What are some other services that you found to be most helpful to people in what we call “the sandwich generation?” I mean, that one that you just described is great. Even in Europe or China, or wherever they live.

Absolutely. I think it is so needed even if you do live next door to them. I assume you’re going to have your own life too, and you can’t always be on top of it. Some other resources that I found when I was going through my own care journey with my dad were support groups, truthfully. I happened to find one, and I encourage everyone if you’re in this situation. Mine was for kids or people under the age of 40 who had a loved one, most likely a parent, with dementia. And that, to me, was the best support group I could have joined. It was virtual because, luckily, there aren’t too many people under 40 who are dealing with that, with a parent with Alzheimer’s or dementia. But also, just because we were all over. Some were in Oregon, some were in California, so that to me was the best thing I could have done. It was once a month, but that is truly what I highly recommend to everybody. Find yourself a support group if you can. Yes, friends and family are amazing, but going through and talking to people who are going through what you’re going through and being able to laugh and cry and scream, you can’t put money on it. It’s just priceless. That would be one of my biggest resources I would encourage people to do.

Very well put. I think that is very crucial and important. I mean, we all have friends and family that are supportive, but in order to really have empathy and have experience, it’s good to speak with people who walk the walk and have that learning, so to speak. So, tell us a little bit about your recent merger. Is there anything that’s different that you have experienced or found in merging your business, as a businesswoman?

It’s a cool experience. Parent Projects is a very tech-heavy company, which I’m personally not. It’s just who I am. It was really wonderful to be able to use and utilize their tech for Compassionate Callers, and that’s what we’ve been doing and why it’s on the back burner right now because we want to make it as robust and great as possible. One of the biggest positives is that we’re able to do these amazing things with technology so that when we do roll out Compassionate Callers again, it’s going to be everything I could have ever dreamed of. Up to date, technology forward, there’ll be schedules and calendars and notes, the whole thing. I think it’s a really good merger between us because on their end they’re very tech forward, so I bring the gerontology degree or point of view to their company.

It sounds like you’re more people-oriented, like you want to handle the families and talking to them, and explaining.

Exactly.

What are some other ways that you’re projecting your business is going to go? Maybe in five years. What do you think? Think about the people that you know where you live and people you interact with in other parts of the country. Any thoughts on where you might want to see it?

Compassionate Concierge

I do know that Parent Projects, we’re also doing a Compassionate Concierge service, which is very cool. That is where you can literally book someone like me. I’m going to have a team, and you just book me for about 45 minutes. We discuss what’s going on, and those resources I talked about, you get them right off the bat. We’re really looking at this like a concierge service for anyone that’s feeling overwhelmed, they don’t know where to start. Most people don’t. I feel like when I talk to people like you, Gail, because you and I are in this every day, it’s so like, ‘Oh, you do this?’ and it’s so second nature. But a lot of people just don’t know what to do. So, you book an appointment with a Compassionate Concierge through Parent Projects, and you get some direction. You get ideas. You get suggestions. You get those resources. So, that’s something we’re really, really going to push soon. So, you’ll see stuff on that.

Then, the other thing, we’re very AI forward, I should say. I don’t know how much you know about AI.

A little bit.

That’s how I feel. I know it. The Parent Project people, they are very smart with it. Where again, I’m just not that tech friendly. But I do know we’re using that service and technology to better everyone’s experience with the whole aging process. So, there will be more to come on that as well. So, there are exciting things to come.

So, can you give me just one example of how artificial intelligence is going to impact your business and help it?

Yeah, actually. So, if people have projects like what I spoke about. You go on, you sign up, you have these projects. You can journal, or you can say how your parents are doing for the day. And then, the AI technology starts to track it and to really understand, ‘Oh, maybe every day around five, they have a fall.’ Or that’s when they’re getting the most confused. If you’re journaling this, that AI technology then, that I was able to find resources, is able to say, ‘Hey, look, you might need a hands-on caregiver between the hours of four and nine every night.’ They are able to see patterns that are happening due to the journaling or just doctor appointments or whatever is going into this project and say, ‘This is probably one of the services that you could use.’ So, it’s fast information. If someone doesn’t have time to book an appointment with Compassionate Concierge, eventually, the idea is that this AI technology will say, ‘Well, this is what you’re going to need anyway. So, why don’t we just at least get an assessment started?’

Very interesting. Okay. Well, any other things you want to talk to us about, and the listeners, that you feel is important for them to know?

I know. I feel like I probably gave people more questions. So, I was going to say, just reach out to me through Parent Projects. I’d love talking to people.

What’s the best way for our listeners to reach you, Bina?

It’s bcolman@parentprojects.com.

Very good. Thank you so much. This has been interesting, and I’ve learned a lot too, and I’m sure our listeners have. So, thank you all for listening. Please go to our website, www.growingolderwithgusto.com, and subscribe if you’ve enjoyed this episode, which, how could you not? And also, you can share this episode if you’d like with other friends or family members that you think would benefit from this. So, thanks for listening, and remember to stay connected and stay curious.

 

Important Links

• Parent Projects
• Bina Coleman

About Bina Colman

A degree and background in Gerontology coupled with over a decade of experience in the field of elderly care was the springboard for Bina to observe a crucial gap in the continuum of care. She was a part of the sandwich generation herself a few years ago, and felt compelled to address this need, leading to the inception of Parent Projects. In her personal journey, she found herself balancing a full-time career, a family with young children and regular visits to her father in a memory care community.

Her father’s early-onset dementia diagnosis in his late 50’s and his subsequent passing in his early 60’s made her acutely aware of the challenges faced by the sandwich caregivers and their families. Bina was determined to spare others from the overwhelming stress she experienced during that time.

Parent Projects emerged from this personal journey, aiming to provide much-needed support to individuals who are juggling busy lives, full- time jobs and numerous responsibilities. Their service steps in to make those crucial calls on their behalf, offering the peace of mind they rightfully deserve. Their mission is to alleviate the burden and stress of caregiving, ensuring that families can focus on what matters most while Parent Projects provides essential support.

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