“What was your ”˜Why”™?”
That is the question that Cathy Howard, director of Griswold Home Care in Stratford, said she was being most frequently asked as the firm”™s 30th anniversary, officially recognized at a March 9 ceremony, approached.
“It was born out of struggle and desire,” Howard told the Business Journal. “The struggle was trying to find the right professional care for my grandfather, who was suffering from Alzheimer”™s, and the desire was to create my own destiny.”
The one-time estate settlement and trust officer at what she calls “a very large bank” had amassed a large amount of experience “meeting people at the worst time of their lives,” Howard said.
Trying to find a facility where her grandfather could receive the appropriate care and where she could put into practice the empathy she had honed, proved a tall order.
“Thirty years ago, pretty much all you could find was ”˜skilled care,”™ most of which dealt only with post-rehabilitation or post-hospital stay patients, both of which are paid for by Medicare,” she said.
“There were no private care places available for someone who hadn”™t been hospitalized.”
A chance sighting of a write-up of Griswold Home Care in Forbes magazine changed everything, Howard said.
“I was looking for something other than the 9-to-5 job I had at the bank and the story struck me like a lightning bolt,” she recalled. “I called them immediately and within a month I was driving down to Philadelphia in a blizzard.”
Along with her mother, Frances Malafronte, Howard landed the company”™s first Connecticut franchise.
“We were looking to find something where we could look forward to going to work every day, and this was it,” Howard affirmed.
Today the parent company, founded in 1982 by Jean Griswold, operates in more than 200 locations across 30 states. The firm continues to focus on companion care, home services, personal care and respite care while maintaining the sense of empathy that Griswold, who suffered from multiple sclerosis, had for older and disabled adults, as well as for those living with chronic conditions.
Howard”™s own operation has grown from 1122 Broadbridge Ave. in Stratford to include 193 East Ave. in Norwalk, which opened in 1996, and 43 Grassy Plain St. in Bethel, which also serves Danbury.
The three locations were chosen to form a kind of triangle, Howard said, with demographics also a significant concern.
“We wanted to able to cover the entire county and still be local,” she said. “And they”™re all near a train station, since a lot of our caregivers use mass transit.”
As for those caregivers, Howard acknowledged that recruitment and retention has historically been one of the biggest challenges in the home care industry ”” and Griswold Home Care has been no exception.
“At our peak we had 350 caregivers and 10 office staff,” she said. “Covid created some challenges for us, as it has for everybody. We lost a few clients to the virus and some of our caregivers over concerns about contracting it. Some of our clients have put us on hold as they wait for the vaccine.”
More than 65% of Griswold”™s caregivers are now fully vaccinated, she said.
Howard also previously served as chair of the Jean Griswold Foundation, a 501(c)(3) nonprofit for other foundations that historically provided grants to select nonprofit organizations and families supporting respite and supportive services. The foundation is now transitioning to a public nonprofit foundation whose main goal is to support caregivers.
Howard said she was instrumental in getting the foundation”™s board to issue grants to organizations outside of its usual circle that provide food and security for seniors throughout the county.
The foundation also identified a local provider of masks when such equipment was in short supply and worked with a distillery that was producing hand sanitizer for caregivers.
Howard saved a surprise for the end of her interview with the Business Journal, saying she will be retiring at the end of the year and leaving the company in the hands of her daughters Kelly Howard, who is office manager of the Danbury and Bethel location, and Jessica Howard-Ross, office manager of the Norwalk facility.
“They have a vision of what to do with the business, especially insofar as technology is concerned,” she said. “They”™ve found equipment that can identify certain things like chronic heart failure and COPD before they become exacerbated.
“I”™m excited that they have the energy and the passion to move the business forward,” Howard added. “The girls are ready.”
