Every agency has a brochure, and every brochure sounds good. The useful question is different: which agency fits the home you actually have? This guide gives you a simple way to compare two or more agencies on your own terms.

Local option: New Plan Care gives families in the St. Louis area in-home help so a parent can stay home: companionship, help with bathing and dressing, meals, and overnight care. Call (314) 405-0887.

Write your own page first

On one sheet, describe the person you care for in plain words: the daily routine, the hours that are hardest, who is usually home, where the spare key lives, which tasks matter most, and what tends to make the person you care for feel unsettled. Keep it short. This page is the yardstick for everything else.

Send the same page to each agency

Send the identical sheet to every agency you are considering, and ask each one to answer it in writing. Note how long each takes to reply, whether the reply is specific to your home, and whether it asks you questions in return. A good answer usually shows the agency has listened. A vague answer, or one that could have been sent to anyone, tells you something too.

Set up your own criteria

Turn your sheet into five or six things you care about, in your own words. Examples include how the helper is matched to the person you care for, how changes to the plan are handled, how the hard hours are covered, and how a complaint is heard. Judge each agency against each item, using plain words like clear, partly clear, or unclear rather than stars or scores pulled from somewhere else.

Watch for the answers that should slow you down

Be careful with pressure to sign quickly, with reluctance to put a promise on paper, and with a helper who is described only as a team. Also watch for answers that change depending on who you ask. Ask for the same answer in writing and see whether it matches.

Decide from the pages you collected

Lay the answers side by side at the kitchen table, when the house is quiet. Which agency answered your page most fully? Which one was honest about what it could not do? That is usually the one to call back for a visit. You can also see how this desk weighs the same kinds of things in its methods page: How We Rate Memory Support. For a day in the life of a home support plan, see A Day of Support at Home.

No agency on this site checks health or provides medical care, and that includes the helpers who come into the home. Health questions go to the family's doctor.