Organizing a Care Team

Someone you know is in crisis. Could be a life-threatening illness, a death. Or maybe a good crisis--a new baby, or two new babies! You want to help, but you don’t know what they need. What do you do?

First, what not to do.

Let’s talk about what’s not helpful. This might just be my pet peeve, but do not under any circumstances say, “Call me if you need anything.”You know why? They won’t call. They don’t know what “anything” means to you. Are you talking one meal? Driving their kids to soccer? What if they ask you to watch their six pet hamsters for a week, and that’s not what you had in mind?Let me share something that I had no idea about until I was the one in crisis. The person in crisis is so consumed with their crisis, they don't have the brain space to identify what they do need. If a person is dealing with anything life-threatening, their brains are on maximum overload tilt. The doctors have just backed a dump truck of bad news on them, and they're struggling to remember to breathe, much less do their laundry.Here's the reality: as a person who has been in crisis multiple times—when someone says, “Call me if you need anything,” I don’t. And one of the reasons is calling people requires thinking. And organizing. And remembering. Your friend has enough memory for the doctors. Zero for you. But your friend needs you, so you need to do the thinking, organizing and remembering. Then,

Do something you like to do.

Find something you can and like to do, and ask them if that specific thing would help. You could bring a take-out pizza, offer to drive their kids to school—you decide what you like to do, and offer that. Tell them what day, what time—be specific, and then ask if it helps.

Organizing a Team

Now, here’s where I get real excited. Some of you are organizers. And you are so organized, you could organize a WHOLE team of people to help your friends. How do you do that?First, ask your friends if it would help them for you to organize a team. The team could be all-encompassing, including things like meals, childcare and yard care. Or it could be just one area. Ask your friends what would help them, and then bite off what you can chew.When Bill was sick, we had volunteers doing yard work, cleaning our house, and bringing occasional meals. Oh, and people taking our boys to soccer. Wow—we had a lot of help!  We didn’t have one person organizing the whole shebang, just volunteers doing different parts.

The Big Ask

If you’re the organizer, identify your pool of people—neighbors, Facebook friends, work colleagues, or church friends. Whatever—you know who you can ask for help.Now, ask them 2 things:1. What they like to do.2. How often they can do it.Then, create a calendar, put everyone’s names/emails/phone numbers on it, and send it to all participants AND to your friends in need. The rules are, if you can’t fulfill your time commitment, you arrange for a sub, THEN call you as the organizer and report in.

20 Helpful Things

Here are 20 helpful things to do, many of which we’ve been the grateful recipients:

1. Bring a meal. (If you don’t cook, order take-out to be delivered.)
2. Clean the house. (Or pay someone else do it.)
3. Mow the yard.
4. Rake leaves.
5. Provide rides to doctors, chemo, or therapy appointments.
6. Give money.
7. Team with a group of friends to provide a month of Dream Dinners.
8. Send a card.
9. Provide childcare.
10. Take kids to school. Pick them up.
11. Send flowers, plant flowers, weed flowers.
12. Wash their car; fill it with gas.
13. Walk the dog.
14. Update their blog, or Caringbridge website.
15. Provide Facebook updates.
16. Give gift cards to grocery stores, hair/nail salons, gas stations.
17. Drive the kids to sports practice.
18. Clean the refrigerator or oven. Or both.
19. Run errands.
20. Sit with your friend. Pray with them. Read to them. Hug them.

…For as long as they need you.Those are my ideas, what are yours? What things have you done for others, or others have done for you that you have found particularly helpful in a time of crisis?