caregiver-coordination

name

caregiver-coordination

description

Organize care for an aging or ill family member across multiple helpers — the shared care map, a fair rotation with backup rules, the information binder, and family-meeting agendas that prevent the one-sibling-does-everything spiral. Use when asked help me coordinate care for my mom, my siblings and I need to split caregiving, organize care for a sick family member, or set up a care schedule. Produces the care map of needs and coverage, the rotation schedule with escalation rules, the binder outline, and the family meeting agenda.

Caregiver Coordination Skill

Family caregiving fails in a predictable shape: the nearest sibling absorbs everything by default, information lives in one exhausted head, and resentment does the scheduling. This skill makes the work visible before dividing it — a care map of what actually needs doing and when — then builds a rotation that survives real life (backups, escalation rules, no martyrs) and a binder so that any authorized helper can act without phoning the exhausted one.

What This Skill Produces

• The care map — every recurring need (medical, daily living, household, financial-admin, companionship) with frequency and skill level required
• The rotation — who covers what, with explicit backup rules and a definition of "covered"
• The binder outline — medications, providers, insurance, legal documents, routines — the transferable brain
• The family meeting agenda — a repeatable structure that surfaces load honestly and renegotiates before resentment does

Required Inputs

Ask for these if not provided:

• The care recipient's situation — needs by category, what they can still do (preserving autonomy is part of care), what's changing
• The helper roster — family, friends, paid help; each person's distance, capacity, and constraints stated honestly
• What exists today — who's doing what now (the invisible-load audit), any legal groundwork (POA, healthcare proxy) — existing or missing
• The friction — what fight keeps happening; the schedule must route around known fault lines

Framework: The Fair-Division Rules

1. Map before dividing: list every task with frequency and required skill. Invisible work (appointment scheduling, insurance calls, being the worrier-in-chief) goes on the map — it's usually the heaviest load and the least counted.
2. Match by capacity, not geography alone: the far sibling can own insurance calls, bill-pay, appointment scheduling, and nightly check-in calls. "I'm not local" removes some tasks, not all — the map makes that concrete.
3. Backup is part of the assignment: every slot has a named backup and a swap protocol. A rotation without backups is the nearest sibling's schedule with extra steps.
4. Escalation rules in writing: what symptoms/events trigger a call to whom, in what order, including 911-first conditions — decided calmly, not at 2am.
5. Renegotiate on a clock: care needs ratchet upward; the meeting cadence (monthly, plus after any hospitalization) re-runs the map so the schedule tracks reality, and the when-home-care-isn't-enough conversation is scheduled before it's an emergency.

Output Format

Care Plan: [name]

Care Map

Need	Frequency	Skill needed	Currently done by	Visible before?

Rotation

Slot/Task	Owner	Backup	"Covered" means
Swap protocol: [how] · Escalation: [symptom → who → then who; 911-first list]

The Binder

[Sections: medications+pharmacy · providers+portals · insurance/ID · legal docs+locations · daily routines+preferences · this rotation]

Family Meeting Agenda ([cadence])

1. Load check — each person, honestly 2. What changed in [name]'s needs 3. Re-run the map 4. The next threshold and its trigger

Legal instruments (POA, healthcare proxy) and benefits eligibility are jurisdiction-specific — verify with an elder-law attorney or local agency; this skill organizes the family's work around them.

Quality Checks

• Invisible/administrative work appears on the map with a frequency
• Every rotation slot has a named backup
• Escalation rules are written and ordered, with 911-first conditions
• Remote helpers carry real load, itemized
• The renegotiation cadence and the next-threshold conversation are scheduled

Anti-Patterns

• Do not divide tasks before mapping them — invisible load stays invisible and the spiral continues
• Do not let "closest = default owner" stand without naming it as a choice being made
• Do not build a rotation with no backups — it's a single point of failure wearing a schedule
• Do not plan around the care recipient — their preferences and remaining autonomy are inputs, not obstacles
• Do not give legal or medical advice — organize around professionals, and route those questions to them