Patty Kikos interviews sisters Marissa and Lauren who are the co-founders of Careseekers, an online marketplace, connecting people looking for in-home carers, with people looking for work as care or support workers. They combine their skills in law and marketing, along with their passion for this sector, after seeing the gaps in the market when their grandparents needed care. This is a great listen for all care workers, as well as carers who use care workers, or want to become support workers themselves.
Patty:
Hello and how are you? I’m very well, in fact I’m excited, as today is a very special episode of Carer Conversations – not just because I get to be in your ears again, but because I am interviewing, not one, but TWO women Marissa and Lauren – two sisters no doubt, who started a company called Care Seekers.
They have created a community with a purpose. And have designed a digital platform that connects individuals and families to care workers.
As an NDIS registered provider, Carerseekers can service all NDIS participants. They partner with aged care providers so participants can use their home care funding on a care worker of their choice. They provide an end-to-end solution where you can search for a worker, award contracts, book in support workers, and pay invoices or have them sent to you provider of choice
Careseekers help facilitate choice and control over the care you receive, and also create work opportunities for care workers.
As a support worker, you can work as much or as little as you like and you get to choose the jobs you want to do. The bookings and calendar feature will help you stay organised, manage your work and plan your weeks. You get to be in control of your own business by setting your own rates, navigating your own path, and finding your area of expertise.
Careseekers started it in 2015 and have had over 15,000 workers register on the platform since then, and have delivered hundreds of thousands of hours of support.
If you’d like to know more about them, their online home is careseekers.com.au – the website link is in the show notes or the transcript.
Today’s chat will centre around support workers – aka care workers. This is someone who looks after the well-being of people in their daily lives. They help individuals living with different physical disabilities and various mental health needs to live their lives more independently, and to support them to reach their potential, by providing both physical and emotional support.
Lauren:
I absolutely love working with my sister. I think you either can or you can't, and you know with the sibling. You've always you've played together. You've negotiated together. You've kind of, you know, worked together from a very young age. And when you're running a business. You have to do a lot of that in a day to day basis and also you have to be in constant contact with the person. There's no one else I could work with and be in so much constant contact with other than Marissa.
Patty:
Who's the older sister and do you ever pull rank when you have any disagreement?
Marissa:
Marissa me, I'm the older sister and I've never pulled rank in any disagreements. I've never even thought to pull rank. It's actually funny. There's quite a big gap between us. There's four years, but as we get older, it really feels like we're the same age reflecting. I think the only time I've ever pulled rank was when we were much younger. And Lauren used to borrow my clothes and not return them in a in a well thought out state. If she returned them at all and I think in those moments. I did pull rank and go right. No more borrowing of my clothes.
Patty:
Clothes so you're responsible for teaching Lauren about accountability?
Marissa:
Exactly! And fashion 😊
Patty:
How do you resolve your differences, if you have them?
Lauren:
We don't have a lot of differences within the business because we work on such different aspects of it. I do all the marketing and tech and Marissa's the CEO and does a lot of compliance and staff management, so we really like stay in our lanes when it comes to the big picture of the business and its future. And the vision. Again, we come at it with such different viewpoints that we don't have a huge amount of differences Marissa's very rational and detail oriented, whereas I tend to be more emotional and bigger picture focused. So, I think we respect each other's viewpoints and kind of go from there.
Patty:
It's a very simpatico blend that you have, isn't it?
Lauren:
It is.
Patty:
I assume that you meet up outside of work. Do you have any boundaries when it comes to discussing work, or are your parameters a little bit more fluid?
Lauren:
Very fluid, very fluid and we often have a gaggle of girls that we have to parent whilst in each other's company so that keeps us not being able to talk about work. It's a bit magical, the way we can go from one topic to the other. We do a lot of walking in the suburb where we live, with our dogs. We can go from a work issue to a personal issue to the latest current affairs issue, within like a 45-minute walk.
Patty:
That sounds like you've got very aligned values as well. It sounds like you’re friends as well as colleagues as well as sisters.
Lauren:
Yeah, we are
Patty:
Let's go back in time a little to when you were both younger. Where did you grow up and what was your family life like?
Marissa:
So, I was born in South Africa, and I left there when I was 2 years old. Our parents did not support or want to live in the system of apartheid, which is what was in place in South Africa at the time, and we had actually moved to Dallas, TX and my dad was specialising as an endodontist there and we were living there very happily.
I love looking at old photos of my mum with her big hair and my parents at line dances and my mum's brother was living in Australia and he spoke to my parents, and he said “Why don't you come and live in Australia? Because if you come to Australia, I think our sister will come and I think the other side of the family will come and we'll all stay together. Whereas if you stay in America. You're going to be in America. I'm in Australia. We'll have family in South Africa, and we won't be together.”
So, my parents moved to Australia, very unknown about it and we're not sure about it at all. I mean, it was the early 80s. It turned out to be the best thing because as my uncle predicted everybody else came, which was fantastic, and so we grew up with our whole extended family around us and to this day remained very close to our cousins.
Patty:
That's very special.
Marissa:
In terms of what our life was like, I mean, it was the 1980s and 90s. It was pre-internet, so it was that very idyllic childhood where everything felt safe and certain even though it wasn't that it had that feeling. So, there was lots of time roaming the streets with neighbors, out on our bikes till all hours. It was that very typical 80s and 90s childhood. We went to a Community School, which eant we grew up in a very close community.
Patty:
So, when you say Community School, do you mean like the local school?
Marissa:
Yes, the local school and also a religious school. So, it was made up of a lot of South African Jewish immigrants who'd come to Sydney and settled in St Ives. I mean, obviously it was a little bit broader than that, but essentially that was that made up probably 80 to 90% of the school at least when we were there.
Patty:
Got it.
Marissa:
So, it was quite a homogeneous group, which again can feel very, very comforting if you're part of that group, but also it can feel quite insular and small, and as for our mother, I'm grateful to her. She exposed us to a lot of theatre and books and made our worlds a little bit bigger than that, which was really good.
But I mean essentially, it was different to being a parent today. There's so much that I reflect on and try and copy from that time in my life review, I reflect on it very fondly. And then obviously there are things that you also make sure you're doing quite differently to how it was when you were growing up.
Patty:
Yeah, some of our lessons are cautionary tales. Aren't they?
Marissa:
Always!
Patty:
And of course, you are now parenting in an era where kids have access to technology and we didn't remember when we used to ride our bikes and we had to be home when the streetlights came on and we knew where our friends were, based on where their bikes were located.
Marissa:
Totally, you'd notice where the pile of bikes on the lawns outside were.
Patty:
100% Yep. What were the most poignant transitions between your adolescence and young adulthood?
Marissa:
For me it was walking out of school. I think the day I walked out of school, and I didn't have a bad school experience, but I never looked back. The world just opened up to me and became a really big, exciting, intriguing place, and I think going to university, as well and just finding a love of learning that I don't think I'd cultivated at school, via concepts and ideas that I was exposed to at Uni, just blew my mind.
Lauren:
For me, I think it was when I left Australia, so I went on my own to teach English in Vietnam when I was 19 and I just remember just learning about emerging economies and seeing the developing world at that point. Vietnam was still developing, and I just had such a sense that there was more to do in life. Like that we were so privileged here in Australia. But then you know there was just so much good that could be done in the world.
Patty:
World and what inspired you both to study what you did and what was your intention back.
Lauren:
So, I was desperate to work in the film industry. I was going to be a director, producer, I loved acting, that was 100% what I wanted to do and the advice I was given was, “Oh, it's very, you know, very uncertain. Have a good degree, have a fallback plan instead.” So, I did. And so instead of studying what I wanted to study, I ended up with a commerce arts degree, but I wrangled my way by doing lots in the arts. I majored in film and Spanish and then with the business I did marketing and economics. So, I tried to be as creative as possible within the degree.
Patty:
Do you feel like your creativity is being embodied now in your current position? Yeah.
Marissa:
Absolutely every day.
Patty:
And what about you Marissa?
Marissa:
When I finished school, I really wanted to be a journalist. My heart was set on being a foreign correspondent. I think it's quite a common 18-year-old dream, and when I went to university, I decided to study history and politics to give myself the subject matter and then I intended to do a communications masters afterwards after my first year of university,
I just loved it so much and I then transferred into law and that really set my path in life because then I became a human rights lawyer, and I did that for 15 years. But what changed my journalism? I remember this moment I had done an exchange program to Washington DC, and I was doing an internship at the ABC there and there was a protest going on the one day.
It was at I think it was the World Bank or one of the big financial institutions there, and we went to cover it and I remember holding the microphone and asking people questions, and I just was overwhelmed by this sense of “I don't want to be on this side asking the questions. I wanna be on the other side, passionately explaining what I'm trying to fight for”, and so once I was then on that legal path that that took my journey on that, and I really enjoyed working in human rights law, I did it for 15 years.
Patty:
Do you miss it?
Marissa:
I think I was quite burnt out by the time I transitioned into Careseekers and my goal with law was to help people. I saw Law as a tool to help people and Careseekers very much ticks that goal. Sometimes I do miss sort of their intellectual rigor of really thinking through an issue from a legal perspective. But otherwise, I'm still reaching my goals with Careseekers.
Patty:
And you certainly earn your stripes. How did starting your business, such as care seekers, unfold for you both? I mean, what is your ‘why’? What's your mission statement?
Marissa:
So, the mission statement of care seekers is to see more people live life on their own terms, be it people with disabilities, older people wanting to stay at home, people wanting to workers trying to work in a way that allows them to accommodate their studying to accommodate family responsibilities.
So that's what really underlies Careseekers and how we came to that was through professional and personal experiences. So, on the personal side we saw our grandparents want to remain at home as they age, and we saw our families able to support them to do that and they did that through informal networks through community, reaching out to people and finding workers who are willing to work in our grandparents homes at a price that was much more than they'd be earning at an agency and then on the family side, less than we'd be paying an agency.
So, sort of in an informal market, cutting out that middleman. And through that experience, we saw families who wanted to do what we wanted and spoke to the care workers. They said, “Oh, do you have other roles for friends of ours?”
So, it sort of evolved like that on a on a personal side, then on a professional level, I'd been working for the last 5 years in disability discrimination and all of my clients were people with disabilities, intellectual disabilities who were in involved with community services. Their ability to parent was being challenged and I just saw the difference that having a really good support worker made in their situation and in the outcomes of their case, and I saw that not being able to choose your support worker and just being calling an agency and having a support worker sent to your home, who you didn’t choose, or you didn't necessarily have a connection with and then a revolving door of support workers, so a different one Monday. Tuesday Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, and how that just didn't work.
And I remember thinking if you could pick your own work and build that relationship, this would really have a better outcome and there was no openness to that at the time. In fact, the belief was. “No, we don't encourage that”. I mean, it sounds so crazy today when we talk about how meaningful a support worker is in the lives of people with disabilities, older people, and the carers involved, to think that back then, building that as a meaningful relationship was discouraged.
Patty:
And this was only 10 years ago??
Marissa:
Yeah, yeah, there's been a real change and also it was the early days of the NDIS and I had a client in the trial site in Newcastle and I remember it was like a light bulb working with the NDIS and then saying OK so, “what does your client want to do?” and all of a sudden the choice being in their hands. And I had this thought of “Aha! This is the environment to create a business where people can choose their own support workers!” and Lauren has a totally different skill set which she'll speak to, which really made Careseekers happen!
Lauren:
So, I had always worked in startups and owner led businesses when I left Uni, and I was so inspired by these people that just came up with an idea and built a business, so I kind of I could see it was a possibility, and then I moved to the UK and worked at one of the Prince’s Charities called ‘Business in the Community’.
It was all doing a lot of corporate social responsibility, taking big UK based businesses and kind of finding the good or bolting on the good to them. You know, adding an employee volunteering program or starting to measure their carbon footprint and I love the idea of building a business that has had DNA in its impact like we never have to look for the good. You know where every day we're delivering huge amounts of social impact.
Patty:
When carers are looking for a support worker, what are some qualities and qualifications they should seek? I mean, I'm also aware that carers have vastly different needs, so I'm sure there's no ‘one size fits all’ approach.
Lauren:
It definitely isn't. When we set up Care Seekers, we were actually very committed to not having any minimal like mandatory formal qualifications to register on the platform. And that was because we were very passionate about people who had been carers in their life and sing that experience to monetize their work. It somebody had cared for elderly parents, somebody who'd spent their life caring for a child with a disability or a partner. They have incredible skills.
Patty:
Even a young carer?
Lauren:
Absolutely, especially a young carer! I mean you know a young carer has seen caring and done caring from often since they learn to talk. So, we wanted to make sure there was a lot of safety and background checks in place. So, when it comes to registering on Care Seekers, there's a huge amount of you have to have, like all the background checks, and worker screening check, photo ID, 100 points of ID, 2 professional references. And we make the platform transparent so you can see what informal or formal experience that the person has had.
Patty:
So you're open to a plethora of qualifications and backgrounds, aren't you?
Lauren:
Yeah, absolutely yeah.
Marissa:
Yeah Patty, I think you picked up on the most important point when you said it's not one size fits all, it's about finding the worker that is right for you and for your vision. It's a personal relationship, so in the same way, in any personal relationship, there's no right person, but there's that person that is right for you.
Sometimes qualifications will be absolutely essential when you are looking for somebody who has ‘peg feeding’ experience, you need to have that experience. You need to have an understanding of how to do that. And then other times qualifications will not be necessary at all.
You're trying to find someone who is the right personality match to have a cup of tea with your mum. You're looking to address social isolation issues, so we always say try and be open. Don't come in with a set idea necessarily of what you're looking for and always interview. Meeting the person that's very, very important.
Patty:
You know, while supporting clients as a case manager, I have worked with a number of service providers over the years, so a little similarly to you, I have been the bridge that connected the support for carers.
Unlike you, however, I never worked directly with the support workers, but rather with many different agencies that would hire them. When clients had very specific needs, finding a support worker that would be a perfect match on paper was sometimes tricky. And when that connection was made, it was a very big sigh of collective relief. For the agency, the worker, the carer and even myself.
Families showed immense gratitude for a worker who would relieve them of a task that was too difficult to do. I remember receiving a message one time after a regular worker had to cancel and was replaced with someone else at the last minute. And I expected to be on the receiving end of a difficult conversation with a disgruntled carer, but instead, she wanted to let me know that the replacement was such a great fit, that she’d prefer this worker, instead of the original one.
And this was prefaced with her stating emphatically, that her original worker was lovely, and she meant no disrespect, but she had simply clicked with her replacement, and was hoping to have her instead. What is some of the feedback that carers give you, regarding support workers, and how has this evolved in the way you run your business?
Marissa:
I think carers can get really frustrated when a worker takes on a role that they cannot do on the terms required by the role. So, for example I would like somebody on Tuesday 9 to 11 ongoing, so a worker takes that role because this Tuesday they're free, but they actually are not free every other Tuesday and I think that that is incredibly, incredibly frustrating and understandably so for a carer.
And so, we really are very direct with the workers. This is something we've learned over the years, is to be incredibly direct with the workers. “I understand you can do the role today, but this role is ongoing every Tuesday can you do it every Tuesday?”
And getting them to commit yes or no. And obviously you know you're relying on honesty in those situations. But essentially, you're stressing the importance that this is needed every Tuesday, because during this time it is the only time the carer gets any respite. The carer attends X or Y during this time and so it is really important that you are there because if you are not there, if you're not able to take on this role in this way, they will not be able to do that.
Patty:
Hmm, so it's about making sure that people commit to something that's going to be sustainable for them.
Marissa:
Exactly, exactly! I think also in general, unreliability and flakiness, is really not tolerated by families and understandably so, and so where we see workers who are doing that time and time again, we actually will stop putting them forward.
Patty:
And is there any other way to get some perspective on the situation?
Lauren:
So often we try and humanise the support worker to the career as well and emphasise that they are also a person. Imagine it from the support workers' point of view. They arrive knocking on houses they've never been to, meeting a client they never met, and so they're trying to establish a rapport, and sometimes you know the best worker can also be a real introvert or quite shy.
So, when there's not that initial connection, and I guess, maybe the feedback is, uh, no, no, no, it’s not right, obviously if the carer is not happy, that's fine, but we do also say, “we know this worker, they've got over 2000 hours on our platform, and they are a gem.
So sometimes we do just have to give people the chance to give a support worker 1 or 2 tries. It's like meeting a friend or a person who's going to be your friend. Sometimes people don't click and they're like, “I remember I hated you when I first met you”
I think we do just try to humanise what the support workers are going through. They're not all these like really bold and confident people that walk through the door and say “right, what needs doing?” Some just need some time to get into the role.
Patty:
Yeah, yeah. And what's that old adage? There are 3 perspectives to the story. There's one person’s side, the other person's side, and there's what actually happened, right?
Marissa:
I think that has been a really, really, really significant learning that we've had over the years of Care Seekers. So sometimes a person using our platform will give us a call and tell us a scenario that's happened and how poorly the worker has behaved, and you're outraged, as from their point of view, you can't believe that a worker has done this.
What we have learnt is you call the worker, and say “oh, could you tell me what happened on Friday when you were supporting this person?” and you will get the scenario from a completely different perspective it actually makes as much sense.
Yes, so you have these 2 really different perspectives and then obviously the truth sits somewhere in the middle, but I think what we've really learn. Is to stop and take the time and hear both perspectives of a situation before coming to any conclusions around it and taking any further action.
Patty:
Has running Care Seekers taught you both to be much more neutral in your responses?
Marissa:
Definitely. I think we are. I know Lauren referred to being emotional, but I think we both are and I think it's really taught us to say, “hang on, let's take a step back, let's see what's happened here”.
Patty:
It’s probably worth noting that how we are as consumers is very distinct to how we are as an employee, and different again to how we navigate our personal lives. I’m guilty of this myself when I go into a store for instance. I’m often there because I have an unexpected 10-minute window of free time, whereby I’ll cram in as much shopping as humanly possible.
I’m in my own zone where I don’t want to be interrupted, or hear anyone else's opinion, or be “up sold” to. And now that I self-reflect, I’m probably not my best self in that timeframe. And for our carers, when they are at capacity, and feel overstretched, and are navigating hurt, sadness, grief and disappointment, it can be hard to be professional and neutral when it’s about someone that is so personal and precious to you.
I like how you’ve both mentioned the importance of boundaries, especially as most carers who are prone to care giving are often heart centred sensitive people and aren’t necessarily extroverts, like you said Lauren. If you had one piece of advice or feedback for support workers or care worker, what would you say to them?
Marissa:
Definitely to be aware of boundaries. Workers are generally very caring people; hence they've actually entered this line of work. However, where we find issues arise is when people are not showing respect for the set-out boundaries in a situation, and often it's coming from a really good place.
So your shift might end at 5:00 o'clock, and the person you're supporting has made dinner, and they're going to be eating it alone and they ask you to stay, but an issue arises when you stay for dinner.
If that's not the scope of what you've been asked to do, as harsh as it sounds, don't do it, because when you do, do it that is, when problems can arise. Obviously, you could say something like, “look, that's not part of the service I provide, but if you would like that, maybe we can speak to your support coordinator and next time, extend the hours”. But really, it's funny the issues are not lack of caring that causes issues in this. It's almost too much caring that causes issues.
Patty:
In my experience, carers have often been reluctant to accept help, or their caring role took form really abruptly, and changed their lives quite drastically. As a result, your focal point or your priority changes and your loved one or your care recipient now always comes first.
And sometimes when your world is turned upside down like that, you hold on to whatever semblance of control you feel you have because your identity has completely changed. This could be from the way your day is structured to whether you even choose to accept external help, and even transitioning from a carer to a caregiver can sometimes even mean that you become a caretaker. What is the most common theme that comes up for you when you chat to carers or people that are your clients?
Marissa:
Burnout would be one of the top things that come up. And everything you’ve just described. A carer is tired and juggling a lot physically and emotionally, so I’d say that that is the number 1 theme.
I think the frustrations around finding and keeping good support workers, because again, it’s a help, but it can also become another thing to manage.
Patty:
It does, especially when someone is helping in a way that you don't do it, or in a way that's got a different systematic approach to you.
Lauren:
Exactly, I think carers have to become comfortable to receive care. Yeah, often you know they can be quite controlling, as they like things a certain way, whereas I think it's always wonderful to have somebody come in and see a situation and bring their own expertise and experience to it.
We get a lot of people feeling very guilty. Especially I would say children of elderly parents. They feel guilt, or partners of of an elderly spouse. They feel guilty about getting help in the first place. Even though, just that little bit of help, makes them such a better carer in the long run.
Patty:
Hmm, it's a big creative adjustment that you need to make in your psyche to accept help, isn't it?
Lauren:
It is.
Patty:
This is amazing. You 2 have been a delight. I think it might be time for some rapid fire wrap up questions. On a scale of 1 to 10, how good a driver are you?
Marissa:
Marissa, answering this one, I don't want to take Lauren down with me. I'd say I'm a 3. I have no sense of direction and I move between driving like a very elderly person who might be a little bit anxious on the roads, to doing some rather dangerous things.
Patty:
Oh my. Who drove to the studio today?
Lauren:
Me! I'm a 7. I'm generally OK. I just don't love driving on highways and all the times my kids have ever heard me swear, it's 100% in the car.
Patty:
How long does it? Take you to get ready in the mornings.
Marissa:
So, for me it takes as long as I have, which usually isn't very long and every day I'm putting on my makeup in the car, which probably contributes to my answer to questions one.
Lauren:
I can also make anything work, I'm actually more efficient under pressure, and it's the mornings I have more time, that I usually forget my wallet or my phone or some important thing. I think I work well under pressure.
Patty:
I relate I relate. Is it wrong for a vegetarian to eat animal crackers?
Marissa:
Very interesting question, but no, as long as no animals were harmed in the making.
Patty:
Lauren, what do you think?
Lauren:
I'm going with her. {all giggle}
Patty:
OK alright, what is your favourite junk food?
Marissa:
For me it's lollies from those ‘pick & mix’ selections in convenience stores and licorice bullets are a particular favourite.
Lauren:
For me it's chips. My absolute downfall, any flavor will do.
Patty:
Do you have a favourite?
Lauren:
Nope. Any flavour!
Patty:
Last dress up party you attended. What or who did you go as?
Marissa:
So I went to a ‘Euro Trash Eurovision’ party and I went as the Eurovision entrant. I had full wings and metallic leggings and an Art Deco style dress.
Lauren:
I actually hate dress up parties and avoid them like the plague and the last one I can remember going to, I had to go as an R & B gangster girl.
Patty:
Did you have chains around your neck?
Lauren:
I did! which my dog was actually wearing last night.
{All giggle}
Patty:
This is amazing. You have both been a delight. Thank you so much for joining me today.
Lauren and Marissa:
Thanks Patty, thank you so much.
Patty:
My wonderful carers. This is where I leave you for today.
Our goal for this episode was to give care workers a voice, in addition to highlighting the struggles that many carers navigate, when their identity might need to be suddenly redefined, or perhaps is ready for a new and improved definition.
Carers rarely give themselves promotions and are often hesitant to outsource some of the responsibilities within the caring role.
Therefore, it’s important to ensure that you are connected to not only a supportive community around you like the Carer Gateway, but to also maintain good connections with service providers and support workers.
If you found this episode helpful, or know someone that could benefit from hearing it, please feel free to share it with them. By subscribing and giving us a 5-star rating, it really does help us get this essential information to the people that will benefit from it most.
This episode was inspired by several carers, who requested this topic be discussed. If there’s a theme you’d like to hear featured in one of our future episodes, please don’t hesitate to reach out and let me know. You can email me at CGConnections@benevolent.org.au and type “Attention Patty” in the subject line. Til next time – stay well and take good care of yourself.
--
Billy:
If you are caring for a relative or a friend who has a disability, a mental health condition, a life limiting health or medical condition, or they are frail because they're getting older. Please contact us at Carer Gateway on one 1800 422 737 or look us up on www.carergateway.gov.au
If you are a carer, you're allowed to take time to look after yourself. You are just as important as the person you take care of.