Kelly McCabe

Kelly McCabe
President/Owner, TLC HomeCare Services

Tender loving (home) care brings peace of mind

Caring for elderly loved ones has unique challenges, says Kelly McCabe, president and owner of TLC HomeCare Services. People often don’t know much about it – until it’s time to become an expert. She wants to be there to guide adults through that transition for their parents.

“I just really love being able to offer guidance and assistance to families who are struggling through one of the hardest decisions of their lives,” says McCabe. “It’s not easy to realize that your elderly parent needs help.”

McCabe launched TLC 12 years ago to provide non-medical care for elderly clients in Burlington, Camden and Gloucester Counties. It’s a specialty she came into by chance, she says.

McCabe was working in sales for an insurance company, helping people understand their insurance benefits when a friend suggested she go into business herself – providing home health care.

“I thought to myself, home health care is nothing like insurance, where is this coming from? I know nothing about the medical side,” says McCabe. “But she said no, it’s about relationships.”

So many people not only need someone to come in and help them – even if it’s just around the house – but they also need a companion they know they can count on, she says.

“It’s about compassion, love, kindness and being there for another human being in their time of need – even if that need is to just sit and chat and have a cup of coffee with them,” says McCabe.

So she established 2 levels of non-medical care within TLC. One is companion and homemaker services, where a caregiver comes to help around the house and provides supervision. The other is personal care services which includes added support from a state-certified home health aide who can also help clients with feeding, incontinence care, bathing, medication reminders and monitoring vital signs. TLC is a preferred provider with the MS Society, which holds a special significance to McCabe, whose close friend died young of the disease.

McCabe knew that if she was going to hire home health aides, she needed to understand their job in and out. So when she started the company, she became a certified home health aide herself.

“That opened my eyes and made me understand not only how difficult it is to care for another person, but how important it is,” she says. “That firsthand knowledge taught me about the types of people I wanted to hire for my business, not just the skills I needed them to have.”

Many of her employees have been with her for a decade or longer. The team especially stepped up when Covid hit, she says.

“They went above and beyond,” says McCabe. “Our home health aides were the unsung heroes of the pandemic. They didn’t get the accolades that other healthcare workers got, but they deserve every bit of attention for the work they’ve done.”

The work, she says, makes her feel more fulfilled than any job she’s had before.

“I love taking care of people,” says McCabe. “It’s something that brings me a lot of joy knowing I’ve made a good placement with the caregiver, so the family has peace of mind.”

If you asked McCabe what kind of career she saw for herself growing up, home health care wouldn’t have been her answer. She didn’t go to college – she just “jumped straight into sales and worked my butt off,” she says. Just like her favorite Robert Frost poem, she says, she “always took the road less traveled by, and that has made all the difference.”

“My path just took me this way, and now I’m able to make a real impact on people’s lives,” says McCabe.

When the Team Makes the Difference

For many adults, realizing your parent needs more help than you can give is not easy. But when you start to seek that help, you should not only look at how the company treats their clients, but also find out how they value their employees, says Kelly McCabe.

“Companies that value the people who work for them are going to provide you with the best care there is,” says McCabe. “You want someone who genuinely loves what they do, and that means they have to be treated as well as their clients.”

And that starts at the top, says McCabe.

“You want an owner or CEO that’s hands-on, who understands the needs of their employees and clients enough to make sure they’re providing the best services possible,” she says. “You also want to support a company that believes in the same values as you. Caregivers become a part of your family, and you want to make sure you’re on the same page.”

856-234-8700 | tlchomecareservices.com