Mother Daughter Team Opening Home Health Care Business

The best thing about having a mother as a business partner, according to Sarah Chambers?

“What’s she gonna do, fire me?” quips Chambers.

Her mom, Sharon Morgenstern, says “I trust Sarah."

"And she knows where I live,” chimes in Chambers.

Morganstern celebrated Mother’s Day with a daughter who is also her business partner in Home Helpers of Roswell, which offers  non-medical personal home care and companionship services. The mother-daughter team, which launched the home-health care franchise in January, have spent the first part of the year getting needed licenses and are preparing for their first clients.

Both women have backgrounds in business. Morganstern, 66, worked with radioactive isotopes as an X-ray technician and helped launch the first mammography program in Elmira, N.Y. Later, she started a wholesale embroidery business and spent a decade catering to high-end licensed images such as Disney, Sea World, cruise lines and colleges. Working at Whole Foods, she said, reinforced the three most important components of a business: “Customer service, customer service, customer service.”

Chambers, 32, has a B.S. in biology from the University of Georgia, an M.B.A. from Kennesaw State and has eight years of management experience in the hiring, supervising, training and terminating of employees.

Elder abuse in their own family prompted the duo to go into the business. When her own mother was hurt, the ladies flew to Florida to help and spent 13 hellish weeks trying to arrange care.

“At the time, I didn’t know anything about home health-care at all,” said Morganstern. “I was frustrated, isolated and angry. I did not know where to turn.”

She arranged for her mother to stay in an assisted living home and gave her some cash, thinking she might need it to pay for hair care and other sundries. The next day, her mother’s money and jewelry were missing and the administrators were uncooperative and not especially apologetic.

But that wasn’t the worst part of the experience. Leaving home devastated Morgenstern’s mother, who “literally fell apart.”

“She was not prepared for this traumatic experience,” said Morgenstern. “She passed away shortly after moving into assisted living.”

Morganstern felt the tragedy was party her own fault, for not knowing enough about caring for the elderly. Her own family experience led her to partner with her daughter to start a community business where they could work with families seeking quality care for their aging loved ones.

They found that their business has big growth potential. The U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics predicts that care giving will be the second fastest-growing field over the next decade. Each day in 2011, 10,000 baby boomers will turn 65, and there are 79 million baby boomers in the U.S. An estimated 80 percent of seniors have at least one chronic health condition that limits activity and requires some form of care-giving. And, the American Association of Retired Persons conducted a study that showed 90 percent of aging parents are unwilling to leave their home for care.

Home Helpers of Roswell will work with clients to tailor individual care plans to meet a family’s needs and budget. The company will offer such services as companionship, meal preparation, light housekeeping, local transportation, dressing assistance, personal grooming/bathing and medication reminders.

Morgenstern and Chambers vow to be hands-on owners, doing most of the work themselves.

What does mom think are her daughter’s best traits as a business partner?

“She’s extremely smart, she’s very competent, she thinks quickly on her feet, she has a pleasant personality,” says Morgenstern, to a peal of giggles from her daughter.

Chambers says her mother is “a great communicator, very detail oriented. When she’s going to do something, she does it right in first time. She has so much knowledge; she thinks of things I never would have thought of. She’s a great people person; she can read people. She can find a quality candidate in an interview. She’s very good at coming up with creative ideas and new ways to do things.”

But mama isn’t nimble with technology, Chambers admits.

“There’s a funny story,” Morgenstern chimes in. “I wanted a page created, but she told me to do it. I told her, I don’t know how. She told me to just learn how to do it. The next day was my day off and it took me eight long hours to do it. But I learned how to do it. She was extremely proud of me.” 

The two women are exceptionally close, often traveling on vacation together. They hope they can offer support for families in their new business.

That’s why home caregivers give them the break. They need to recharge their emotional battery. People caring for their parents are "in so much jeopardy of burnout," says Morgenstern.

"That’s why home caregivers give them the break they need to recharge their emotional battery," she concludes.