Washington State, like most states, has its own rules for what is and is not allowed before an organization can call itself an “Adult Family Home”. One of the most important requirements in Washington State is the number of residents that are allowed. That number is six, and that alone makes Washington State an excellent place to set up camp for your loved one to live in such an Adult Family Home.

Unless you’re traveling a great distance – where going to fetch more of your personal items might present a challenge – you don’t need much to move into an Adult Family Home. Washington State has legislated for significant protections for the residents of Adult Family Homes.

The topic of Wake Staff is often overlooked by people prospecting for that ideal Adult Family Home for their loved one, but it’s one of the most important, simply because it offers an unusual degree of safety and security for their loved one.

Even when you find that perfect Adult Family Home for your beloved parent, there’s is almost always a kind of letting go feeling you will experience on the day of the Big Move. In reality – especially if the Adult Family Home is just down the street – the time you do spend with them might be of a better quality than when they were living in your own home. Why is that, you ask?

It sounds like you might already know what the state does mandate, and the most important of those requirements is probably the fact that a maximum of six residents are permitted in any one Adult Family Home household. And that’s a very good thing, simply because the staff in a house of only six senior residents can quickly become intimately familiar with each and every one resident.

Adult Family Homes are usually not equipped to handle the needs of residents who truly need the intensive care that a hospice offers, but most residents in an Adult Family Home do find everything they need. And one of the most important factors is, does the Adult Family Home you are considering have ‘wake staff’? In other words, if your aging loved one gets into difficulties at three o’clock in the morning, will help be there for them, a few feet away. Some Adult Family Homes have such wake staff; others do not.

In the state of Washington, there are fairly strict laws about what an establishment is allowed to – and must do – in order to offer their services as an Adult Family Home. Top of the list, in my view, is the requirement that no more than six residents may live under the single resident roof at any one time. That, of course, does not include the staff who, to all intents and purposes, also live there a lot of the time.

The short answer is Yes, but the question is a great one because it speaks to what is possibly the central value of housing your loved one in an Adult Family Home instead of, for example, a nursing home. An Adult Family Home is, by Washington State law, restricted to just six residents. This means that the Adult Family Home staff have enough bandwidth to get to know every single resident under their care at a deeply personal level. Don’t remember the names of your own grandkids?