Dear Catalina Family,
As the company enters the 40th year of serving Tucson families I continue to be touched, moved, and inspired by Catalina Caregivers, Nurses, and Administrators. This team has risen to meet the challenges of a global pandemic and has worked together to keep each other and our community as safe as possible.
I am ever grateful for your professionalism and shared commitment to compassionate service, as well as your loyalty and trust for Catalina. I thank you all for helping me to reach this incredible 4 decade milestone and I am proud to celebrate our 40th anniversary with each of you in my heart.
LOVE
Judy Clinco, Founder and President
What a wonderful journey Catalina In Home Services, Inc. has been on the past 40 years! Four decades ago in February, 1981 the adventure began.
I had the privilege to start working with Judy and her team not long after she started this amazing service. She had just delivered her first baby. What better time to begin a new venture. When I joined her, that baby was a toddler running havoc around the first office on Craycroft and Speedway. Her dedication, enthusiasm and integrity was totally impressive. I thought I had high nursing care standards, and it was thrilling to find a service that met and sometimes exceeded those standards.
Here I am, almost 40 years later, coming out of retirement, writing a blog about Catalina which has not only survived but thrived. I have followed Catalina’s progress over the years by being recruited by Judy to do groundbreaking training with her beloved staff. She loves her staff and caregivers. It shows in the long term dedication of caregivers who have worked for this service for many years.
As Judy would put it, the caregivers are the “heart of the company.” When Catalina was founded, homecare didn’t exist. Now Judy has created a model home care service in our city. She attributes this to how fantastic her caregivers are. She takes great care of them.
Here are just a few of the ways Catalina In Home services provides care for their caregivers:
401(k) with matching funds: 50% of Companies with less than 500 employees offer matching funds.. A third of them offer an average of 2%. Catalina offers 4%.
Covid Hero bonuses: those caregivers who in February 2020 were serving their clients during the beginning of the pandemic received a special monetary surprise in their paychecks in April.
Covid support: Catalina provides the PPE equipment and enhanced caregiver rate if the client is at high Covid risk.
End of year bonus: based on caregivers longevity and how many hours they work per year.
Travel reimbursement is usually $.58 a mile. Catalina pays $.75 a mile.
Ongoing continuing education: besides face-to-face classes there is also a collection of online courses in one hour units for the caregivers. A caregiver who completes a course is paid for their hours and receives a certificate.
The result of all of these benefits is that the turnover rate for caregivers at Catalina is way lower than the national average. 70% of our caregivers have worked more than two years and 25% for longer than ten!
Each month, 10% of our clients and caregivers participate in a national survey. Of the 15,000 participating companies, Catalina has alway been in the top 10%.This resulted in three very coveted awards: best homecare leadership, provider and employer.
It’s a celebration. Time to blow our own horn. So let’s congratulate this unique, fantastic accomplishment of providing heartfelt care so that clients can age gracefully.at home.
For the story of our beginning, go to this link on our website: https://tinyurl.com/1g7zz8w2
Scan down a bit further on that page and you’ll see a listing of the many “Awards and Recognitions” Catalina has won over these four decades.
