Transition Solutions

The small details count

We offer a bespoke service where we try and manage all the highs and lows that moving brings with it. Some clients are excited and ready for the move (not many, obviously 😊), and some are so thrown by the process that they feel like they are holding their breath and cannot see passed their immediate anxiety!

That is when the small details count. Keeping all the familiarity of the old home in the new home. Our client’s one constant was the display cabinet from his mother – with carefully curated ornaments collected over a lifetime. For his spouse, it was the collection of spices and herbs used every day, all day! And bottles of mystery – also definitely used all the time. We recreated their treasures and spaces, and with their first steps into their new home came huge smiles and releasing of breath!

They were surrounded by what they knew, arranged as it had always been. Though we took a chance on their cupboards and rearranged their smalls into storage containers on each shelf, colour coded jerseys and T’s, applied some logic to the hanging space. Now that really scored the jackpot in smiles!

Banter and Bananas

An area of our business offering we don't talk much about is being Here for You when YOU can't be. You live overseas and would just like to have someone call on your beloved mum and/or dad - to check on them, chat to them and be a friend. Shanoo has given us an account of some of her experiences with our clients below:

Over the many years of facilitating, downsizing and move services to seniors, from much loved family homes to smaller living options, the one type of service that I have valued the most is when those relationships continued after the move, and I am asked to visit beloved parents.

The purpose of the visits ranged from trouble-shooting hiccups like incorrectly entered banking pins and being locked out of online banking to accompanying them to doctors’ appointments and hospital stays, resolving Wi-Fi issues, paying the helper and gardener, clearing cell phones of endless spam to managing menus and carer oversight to providing companionship. I came to realise very early on, that my visits were more than being about the practical and a tea break. I chose to define my role as being an advocate for communicating the needs of my clients to family, nursing staff, carers and banks and cell phone providers. To run interference essentially. Even to the point of being very clear, that yes, if my client complains about something, then I’m thrilled that they have the energy to complain even if we can’t resolve the matter easily. For me that meant they were still engaged and not resigned to monotony.

I remember the day a client called me frantically to check where I was because she thought I had forgotten to visit her. I reassured her that I was 10 minutes away and not late yet. The joy on my arrival, the happy anticipation was mutually loving and supportive. We fell into our routine; tone down CNN, put in the hearing aids, let the carer take a break and settle down to munch on bananas (the bananas I carried as a mid-morning snack were tastier than the ones in the kitchenette), or cheese puffs and easy conversations about my interests too, from books, to South Korean culture and politics, funny anecdotes, my own family news. The focus always on fun and laughter.

If we accept that children offer a kind of reverse parenting as their loved ones’ age, then I find that I sometimes adopt the same way of approaching conversation as one might with a reluctant teen or small child averse to direct questions. While clearing the cell phone and allowing the conversation to take its own pace and my client to talk about anything or nothing, but to sit in quiet companionship, what is in their hearts begins to surface. To hold space for the recall of memories of earlier family life, marriages gone awry, experiences with their own parents, what each of their children mean to them, the gratitude unarticulated and encouraging its sharing with the child in the next phone call.

I am deeply grateful for the trust my clients, both the children and the parents placed in me, and my life is the richer for the memories I now have.

TESTIMONIAL from a loving daughter:
As my Mom has become physically weaker she’s needed carers to attend to her physical needs, but with no family or friends left in Johannesburg, (I have lived abroad for many years), she was feeling increasingly isolated, lonely, and depressed. My annual visits to SA were no longer enough to keep her spirits up, and I became very concerned about her.
After looking around for a counsellor, I remembered that Shanoo was a trained and experienced social worker, and contacted her to see if she could work with my Mom and was so delighted when she agreed!
We’ve established a pattern of weekly visits. Shanoo’s visits are invaluable for my Mom: she provides emotional support and reassurance, the opportunity to talk freely about the things that are important to Mom or are worrying her, as well as practical support sorting out any problems that arise - from managing her phone to understanding puzzling emails or giving instructions to her carers. The list is long!
I cannot recommend Shanoo highly enough. She is a very down to earth, positive, approachable, and sympathetic person. She’s perceptive and thoughtful, offers good practical ideas and advice, is very professional and organised and communication with her flows easily. Her work with my Mom has given me a new feeling … peace of mind about my Mom’s well-being and safety. The support she provides is exemplary and I will always be grateful for her professionalism and the love and kindness she shows.

Ready for a lifestyle change

Our clients have a beautiful family home - spacious and comfortable! But they realised that they were spending their time in only a few of the rooms and no longer wanted to worry about the upkeep of a large garden, pool, umpteen rooms and ornaments to dust.

The move did come with challenges. It is not easy to do a dramatic downsize all in one go - the next few months will be spent reassessing some items brought over. However, new neighbours have already become friends, and it won't be long before home becomes home.