Visiting Angels founder: ‘There’s no place like home’

BRIGHTON — A new business designed to help seniors continue to live in their homes is serving the Brighton area.
    Visiting Angels, a family owned business at 427 S. Seventh Ave., has humble beginnings deeply rooted in the Brighton community.
    Visiting Angels Manager Brad McCauley originally founded the nonprofit organization Harmony Angels to carry on a family tradition started by his grandmother Marjorie Price. McCauley said his grandmother was a former cook at Vikan Middle school and would give hand sewn clothing to families in need.

Photo by Crystal Nelson

Visiting Angels owner and manager Brad McCauley is seen at his desk on Dec. 20, 2012, at the new business at 427 S. Seventh Ave. Visiting Angels helps senior citizens stay in their homes longer by helping them with daily, non-medical tasks.

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    After her passing, McCauley started Harmony Angels as a way to keep her memory alive. He said the organization started out delivering flowers to mothers in nursing homes on mother’s day, then grew to recognizing fathers on father’s day, etc. and that the organization spends a lot of time helping senior citizens overall.
    “As we were out there in the senior community we saw that a lot of the seniors, if they could have stayed in their home, it would have enriched their lives,” he said. “I mean, we have some wonderful facilities here, but there’s no place like home.”
    McCauley said it was his mother’s dream to keep senior citizens in their homes longer and they decided to start a Visiting Angels franchise because it was a very family and community based organization. McCauley — along with his mother, Susan McCauley — opened the business together on Oct. 1, 2012, and his wife, Laura McCauley, is the office manager.
    According to Brad, the business helps seniors with all the non-medical daily tasks they typically struggle with such as cooking, cleaning, grocery shopping, errands, medication reminders as well as helping them with hygiene.
    “Fall prevention is one of our big things,” he said of another service the business is able to provide. “It’s having someone there to help prevent falls and then if they do fall, someone there to respond and get the ambulance there, to get the medical professionals in the house.”
    McCauley said everything they do is targeted to keep clients in their home. The initial stages of the service involve safety assessments, identifying fall hazards or any other safety concerns. A care plan will be written up to identify what services the client needs and an employee is assigned to them.
    “One of our goals is to have a consistent person going in so that, that way, they don’t have a lot of changes going on,” he said. “The other thing we want to do is help them build relations so they can get out in the community — get them over to the senior center or getting them so they can go grocery shopping because little things like that become monumental when you get older.”
    Visiting Angels can also help individuals who are not seniors, as long as they’re 18 years of age.
    “There are cases where individuals will go to the hospital, maybe they were in a car accident or something, and they get out and they need some non-medical assistance in the house,” he said.
    McCauley said since opening things are going very well and that they are starting to establish a clientele. He said they’ve been very active with the Brighton Chamber of Commerce as well.
    “It seems everyone you talk to has a story, everyone has the need…” he said. “It’s a new thing for the community. It’s a needed service and so we’re not very concerned at this time about if it’s going to occur but it’s how and when.”
    For details, contact Brad McCauley by calling 720-685-6272 or email bmccauley@visitingangels.com.