Adult Family Homes are private residential homes licensed to care for up to eight people. They are heavily regulated in WA and can be owned and operated by Registered Nurses, Nursing Assistants, or Home Care Aides. Some offer private rooms with private bathrooms, while most provide a combination of shared and private rooms. Owners often feel a calling to open their homes and provide high-quality, loving care. Understanding why they started and what motivates them is a crucial part of our screening process.
The adult family homes setting offers a smaller, more intimate environment than larger assisted living facilities. For individuals with more complex medical needs who require close monitoring, or for those who thrive in the consistent presence of others (it’s harder to disappear for long periods in your room here), this setting can be just right.
Adult Family Homes are usually better equipped to handle unscheduled needs with higher caregiver-to-resident ratios. Care and activities can be more customized in this setting. Checking in every hour is naturally easier in this smaller setting. Each home is a microculture. Some specialize in care for people with Dementia and Alzheimer’s, others focus on Mental Health, Developmental Disabilities, or a combination of the three. Many people spend their final days under the care of a loving adult family care team that has become like family to them.
Just like other settings, we get calls each year from people needing to move out of adult family homes, too. An unexpected change in condition that cannot safely be accommodated is the most common reason for a move-out. Other reasons include disagreements between owners and residents or their representatives that cannot be resolved with the help of an Ombuds or the need to move because a person’s funds have run out and the home does not accept Medicaid.
We hope that you will enlist our help as you search for the best place for yourself or a loved one. We feel that our service especially shines when our clients are seeking care in an adult family home. For the past 17 years, we have been taking detailed notes on the capabilities and characteristics of hundreds of homes in King, Snohomish, and Pierce Counties.
If you are a do-it-yourselfer, get started with your search by visiting the Department of Social Health Services (DSHS) Adult Family Home Locator or the Adult Family Home Council websites. Both have listings of adult family homes in Washington. Here is a guide to Choosing Care in an Adult Family Home.
Adult family homes are paid for privately, with Long Term Care Insurance, Veterans’ Aid and Attendance, or Medicaid when accepted (not to be confused with Medicare).
