Aging in Seattle With A Real Plan. -Cascade Senior Services

Nobody likes to picture the hard parts of getting older, but avoiding the topic does not make the cost or the complexity disappear. We sit down with Joe and Marilyn Hillier, owners of Cascade Senior Services in Washington State, to talk about what most families overlook: planning for caregiving long before you “need” it. They explain why geriatric care management belongs next to financial and legal planning, and how a realistic roadmap can reduce panic when Mom or Dad starts slowing down. 

We walk through what the aging journey can look like in real life, from early support at home to home care, home health, and the moments when a move to independent living, assisted living, or an adult family home becomes the safer choice. The thread running through it all is advocacy and navigation, especially for out of town family members who need a trusted local partner who knows the community, the resources, and the red flags. If you are trying to make decisions without burning out or overspending, this conversation offers a grounded way to think about options. 

The other big focus is caregivers. Washington is a regulated state, which means training, testing, and licensing are not optional. Joe and Marilyn share how their caregiver training academy works, why hands on skills matter, and why dementia and Alzheimer’s care education should be a baseline for anyone supporting older adults. We also talk frankly about the caregiver shortage nationwide and why supporting family caregivers with training and respite care is essential. 

If this resonates, subscribe for more practical conversations about senior care planning, caregiving, and aging in place, then share this with someone who is supporting a parent or preparing for their own future and leave a review with your biggest takeaway.

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Transcript

Meet The Founders And Service Area

SPEAKER_00 0:00

I'm Joe Hillier. I'm the owner and CEO of Cascade Senior Services, and we're based in University of Place, Washington, and we take care of clients that range from all of what we call South Puget Sound, Pearson, Kitsap, and Thurston counties. And we also service clients in the Seattle area to include King and Snowwich counties.

SPEAKER_01 0:21

That's a big territory.

SPEAKER_02 0:23

And Marilyn, tell us about you. I'm Marilyn Hillier. I'm the other owner, and I've taken on the role of chief operating officer. And my role is to make money for the company. Great answer.

Why Aging Plans Often Fall Short

SPEAKER_00 0:41

The reason we started Cascade Senior Services is we started out doing home care. And we did home care for many years. And then we evolved our company into a home care and home health taking care of the skilled nursing part of home care and whatnot. And what we learned over all the years is there's a point that as you grow older, before you really need the caregiver or really need our type of services, but there's a point where you begin to have to plan for that and think about that and have a plan for what it's going to cost to grow older and get care. Seven of 10 people, you know, in the United States, as we grow older, we're going to need a caregiver. And most folks don't have a plan for that. So that's we created Cascade Senior Services to help people do that, to help people with the geriatric care management, the care management aspect of growing older. People they retire 65 or shortly thereafter, and they have this great plan where they've got their financial and their legal and their medical and where they want to live all organized and put together, but they don't think about what it's going to look like 20 years down the road when they are 85 years old, starting to slow down, need a little bit of help and what that's going to cost.

Care Management From Home To Placement

SPEAKER_00 1:43

And so Cascade Senior Services, we do all that. We start early. We're there when they need the home care. We're there when they need home health if they need it. And if they ever decide to go someplace other than home, we're always an advocate to stay at home, but some people, it doesn't work out that way. We'll always help them find the right place, whether it's an independent living facility, assisted living facility, adult family home, whatever they need. We're here to help them through that whole journey of aging and help navigate it and figure it all out.

SPEAKER_01 2:12

You know what? That absolutely.

Building A Caregiver Training Academy

SPEAKER_01 2:40

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 2:41

But we're we've also expanded. So now we're also we do training. We train for new caregivers, and we've also been asked to provide the state testing. So we train and then we we test for the state state license. So because you haven't had to keep that separate from what we do now because they are two separate things.

SPEAKER_01 3:07

Sure. And you can have having it all in-house is really nice for you guys, right? Yeah. What a great way to get amazing caregivers and and to also help all these families that need it, especially those out-of-town family members who can't be right there. I'm sure Cascade Senior Services is such a great lifeline to find out what's going on, what needs to happen. So that's awesome. And so tell us a little bit about that piece of it. The caregivers are such an amazing. Without caregivers, there is none of this. Right. So tell us about the training and caregivers and what you guys a little bit more about what you're doing there or what your expectations are.

Licensing Rules And Hands On Skills

SPEAKER_00 3:54

I could tell you with our caregivers, we're in what one of the regulated states here in the state. So, you know, we have to have our caregivers have to go through at least a 75-hour course to get their certification to be able to take the test. And once they get to take a test here at the state of Washington, it requires, then they get a license to be a caregiver. So everybody has to be a licensed caregiver here in the state of Washington to provide care for senior. So, you know, we take folks every day as they apply for working with us and we bring them on as caregivers, but we also have developed an apparatus to train our own. And the state of Washington has allowed us, like Marilyn just referenced about training and testing. We have our own training academy that provides a couple of different types of courses in class or a hybrid course where they can do the classroom work online, but everybody still has to do a set-down hands-on 16 to 20 hours of training, depending on how quickly they grasp the information and knowledge, and they have passed through all the different gates, and then we can certify them to take the test. And we love it now that the state of Washington has allowed us to take that test in our facility. So we provide that for our community. And so in the state of Washington, you have to be this certain level of training and testing and certification to be able to ever even work with a senior. And once folks come on board with us, we try and focus each year as they work through their CEUs and so on for to get different certifications.

Dementia Care And The Caregiver Shortage

SPEAKER_00 5:09

First and foremost, try and get them certified as for dementia and Alzheimer's care, at least a better baseline of knowledge in dementia and Alzheimer's care. Because you know, you look at across the United States, one of three of us are going to experience Alzheimer's dementia as we grow older. And that's going to need to be us, our spouse, or somebody we love and care about. We're going to change our life for. So having the caregivers available to help with that is it's paramount. And also with caregivers, look across the United States now, we're at least a million caregivers short. And that's not going to change. We're on a mission to try and find it, find caregivers, train them, get them tested, get them certified so we can get them to work, whether they're with us or with someone else. And we also are adamant about we do so much work with veterans and their families and the family caregivers that we're trying to put together, or we are have put together a program for the family caregiver, 60 or 63 million family caregivers out there that a lot of times they start on of this journey of being a caregiver where it just they just stepped up to the job and they're just going to do it and grind through it and take care of business, take care of their loved one, but they have

Training Family Caregivers And Respite

SPEAKER_00 6:10

no idea what they're doing. So we're trying to get them started as soon as we can.

SPEAKER_02 6:13

Yeah, they can go through our training. Here's what certified, and then they can take care of their own spouse or a family member and they get paid.

SPEAKER_00 6:22

Yeah. And it's it and it's a it's a huge job. And just because we want folks to understand they're a superhero, but they can't do it all themselves. And they're going to need respite care. They're going to need other help along the way. And we're here to help them with that. We're helping to figure out that roadmap so they know when they need the help and the step up and say, hey, I need a little bit of help and who to go to. And if we can't help them, we know someone that can. And that's the service we're trying to do is we provide caregivers for our clients in the community and whatnot.

SPEAKER_01 6:48

It sounds to me like you guys have really taken such a great step in adding cascades in your services, being able to provide the caregivers, train the caregivers, family caregivers, professional

A One Stop Guide For Local Resources

SPEAKER_01 7:01

caregivers, and get the testing done. All of that is not only a huge job for you, but it is a big responsibility. And what a there's you're a one-stop shop for real. They can come to you before there's a crisis, when there's a crisis, when they need training, or if when you they need a caregiver to come in. And you guys have covered all the bases now. That's pretty great.

SPEAKER_00 7:27

It's trying to help people, it's trying to help people navigate, trying to just take care of folks as they figure this out and try and keep the cost down and try not to wear themselves out and just provide their loved one with the best care possible.

SPEAKER_01 7:38

You've been in this business for a very long time in the home care and home health care side. I imagine that you've seen every situation and everything you can imagine. So adding the service is probably a no-brainer for you. Why would you not do it? Right.

SPEAKER_00 7:52

It's never easy, but it's it's getting it up, getting it rolling. We've seen a lot, but we're not not seen everything, but at least we we got a lot of friends out there. We know who to call and we need help. And that's that's what matters, having that network that everybody needs one.

SPEAKER_01 8:04

Oh, true. And the care management piece of that is that is crucial. You guys have been in this these communities. You live here, you work here, you know your communities, and your caregivers know your communities. So having all of that together means that you know what the right resources are and who to refer to and who you would not refer to. You know which way to go. That's so helpful for families. They are so lost when something happens to mom or dad and they need somebody to help them navigate this. So I'm very excited about Cascade Senior Services. I know you guys are. You've put a lot of work into this already. So thank you for sitting and talking to us about it and letting everybody know it's out there and ready to roll.