Free printable template
What the next caregiver needs to know.
A good caregiver learns your parent over months: the pill they hide in a napkin, the chair they will not get out of before the news, the word that ends an argument. When that caregiver leaves, all of it can leave too. This handbook keeps it. Fill it in, print it, and hand it to whoever comes next.
Caregiver handbook · Kinbase
For the next person who cares for
Daily routine
Hour by hour on a normal day: when they wake, meals, rest, the shows they watch, when they settle for the night.
Medications
Each one, the dose, the time, and exactly how they take it. Note the tricks that make it go smoothly.
Mobility
What they can do alone, where they need a hand, the cane or walker, the stairs and the bathroom.
Food
What they like, what they will not touch, textures that are hard to chew, how much help they need at the table.
What upsets, what soothes
The triggers and the fixes. What sets off a bad afternoon, and what turns one around.
House notes
Where things live, the door that sticks, the alarm code, the neighbor with a spare key.
Emergency info
Conditions, allergies, the DNR or POLST and where it is kept, the hospital they prefer.
The people
Family, doctors, the pharmacy, the agency, who to call first and for what.
The knowledge walks out the door
Home care has a turnover problem that families feel firsthand. A caregiver you trust takes a job closer to home, and on Monday someone new is standing in the kitchen who does not know that your mother takes her morning pills crushed in applesauce or that she will not shower until after breakfast. The new caregiver is capable. She is just starting from zero, and your parent pays for the relearning in bad mornings.
A handbook turns those months of learning into a document that stays with the family. The next person reads it and skips the worst of the guesswork. If you have already been through this, here is how to handle a caregiver leaving without losing what they knew.
How to fill each section
The handbook is only worth reading if it is specific. Write what actually happens, not what is supposed to happen. Under medications, “Margaret hides pills in her napkin, so watch her swallow before you clear the plate” is worth more than a list of drug names. Under what soothes, “if she gets anxious at dusk, put on the radio and start folding laundry with her” tells the next person exactly what to do.
Keep the routine concrete. “Breakfast at eight, then she sits by the window until the mail comes” reads better than “morning care.” For the house, name the door that sticks and the neighbor with the spare key. For the people, say who to call first and for what. When you cannot remember whether something is worth writing, ask whether you would want to know it on a first shift. If yes, write it down.
Where Kinbase fits
Filling this in once is the hard part. Keeping it current as things change is the part that usually slips. Kinbase writes the handbook from the daily record, so every logged visit keeps it up to date, and a new caregiver gets it by link before her first shift. The document you started here stays alive without anyone retyping it.
Common questions
What is a caregiver handbook?
It is the written version of everything a good caregiver knows about your parent: the daily routine, how they take their medications, what they can and cannot do on their own, what settles them, and who to call. It is the document you would want in your hands on a first shift.
What should a caregiver handbook include?
The daily routine hour by hour, medications and exactly how your parent takes them, mobility and what help they need, food and what they will and will not eat, what upsets them and what calms them, notes about the house, emergency information, and the people involved. Keep it concrete: write what actually works, not what should work.
Why does caregiver turnover matter so much?
Home care turnover runs high, often well over half of caregivers in a year. Each time someone leaves, everything they learned about your parent tends to leave with them, and the next person relearns it the hard way. A handbook keeps that knowledge with the family instead of walking out the door.
Does Kinbase build this handbook automatically?
Yes. As the family and caregivers log visits, Kinbase keeps the handbook current from the daily record and sends it to a new caregiver by link, so the next person reads it before the first shift instead of learning it week by week.
Start your family’s record.
Name the book, invite the people who help, and the record starts keeping itself. Most families are set up inside ten minutes.
Free for families to start. Everyone you invite joins from a link or by scanning a code, and nobody has to install anything to read or write.