Pierce Mathena
Jun 2022
We have been with Griswold for roughly a year now, and are still with them ONLY because of the wonderful care of Ashley J. Ashley has been an aide with my mother since we signed on to the service and excels and exceeds expectations in all areas of the job. She adapts to the ever changing needs of my mother's care, learning new physical, occupational, and speech therapy techniques right along with us to better continue my mom's care in a consistent manner. She performs not only the duties that are asked of her, but picks up on any other chores or needs that we have and does them without being asked. Ashley stepped into the role and has continued to perform above and beyond every day she is in with my mother. She is a stellar aide (and person), and we are lucky to have been paired with her. The actual company, on the other hand, is a little less than stellar. We do like that Griswold offers very flexible scheduling on the part of the client, making it easy for us to change schedules, as can happen with someone with many care needs. Should an aide call out, Griswold does make every effort to try to get a substitute in ASAP so that your loved ones do have assistance. These are the positive aspects, that unfortunately do not do enough to outweigh some of the problems we have encountered. Since starting with the agency a year ago, we have gone through about 7 different aides on the weekends. That is, on average, a new aide every two months. With the mindset of consistent care, those are really rough numbers. We have ping-ponged between having one aide every weekend or having two aides on alternating weekends and it hasn't kept consistent. Several of these aides have quit very abruptly or just not shown on the days they were supposed to. Had this been an isolated incident with one or two specific aides, I would chalk it up to the individuals, but something tells me that weekend support/communication for the aides is a company issue. Communication with the company has also become a problem in the last few months. I know that there has been a major shake up, and essentially all of the office staff that were with the company when we started with their services are gone. This has led to several instances of miscommunication on the services my mother would be receiving and when new aides would be starting. In addition, this staffing switch also appears to have caused an influx of new aides, and the quality of care has dropped as a result. I have grown tired of having a new aide start with my mother, only to see after a couple of shifts that they are unable to do what is being asked of them, and starting the process to find another aide to fill in the spot, only to go through the same hassle (and all the while paying for these people to not do what needs to be done). Griswold receives three stars from me because they do offer us the flexibility to make schedules without paying penalties for changing at the last minute. But these three stars are truly earned by Ashley J, who is a perfect example of what an aide coming into the home should be. If every employee at Griswold were an Ashley J, then I would leave 10 stars if I could. Edit: this was initially left in January of 2022. As of June 2022 the review had not posted publicly so I am adding this edit to help it appear.
