A contact sheet is only useful on the day someone reads it. The agency's office line, your phone, the key holder, the doctor's office, and the neighbor who can check the house should all sit on one page that a helper can find without asking anyone. Within a few months, something on that page is wrong. Agencies reassign schedulers, families change phones, and neighbors move. This guide is about who keeps the page true.

Local option: New Plan Care gives families in the St. Louis area in-home help so a parent can stay home: companionship, help with bathing and dressing, meals, and overnight care. Call (314) 405-0887.

Name an owner for every line

Write the owner beside each entry, not just the number. The agency line belongs to the agency's office, so ask who is the named contact when the usual scheduler is away. The family's primary and backup phones belong to the adult who runs the schedule or lives closest to the house. The key holder belongs to whoever gave out the key, which is usually the same person who arranged entry before the first visit. Ownership sounds like paperwork, but it decides who makes the call when a number stops working.

Build the sheet around the visit

Keep the sheet to what a stranger standing on the porch could act on. Include:

  • The agency office line and the name of the scheduling contact, plus the helper's own phone if the agency allows it to be shared
  • The family's primary contact and backup, with the order in which they should be called
  • The person holding a key and, if you rent, the landlord or building contact
  • The neighbor who can look in on the house
  • The family's doctor's office, for health questions only
  • The utility or alarm company account line, if the house has one

Write the change rule into the routine

Whenever an agency changes a helper, a scheduler, or a phone number, the family should hear about it the same day, and the sheet should change the same day too. Ask the agency how it notifies families when its scheduler or a helper changes, and in what form. If the answer is that someone will call you, ask the agency to confirm the practice in writing so it is not left to memory. Then decide who on your side receives that notice and who updates the sheet after it arrives.

Test every line each season

Once each season, call every line on the sheet from outside the house and note the result. Does the number reach a person, or a voicemail that the owner actually checks? Is the neighbor still there? Is the key holder still reachable? Mark each failure, assign it to the owner named beside that line, and fix it before the next visit. A line that rings to an empty voicemail is a dead line, and a dead line on a sheet by the door is worse than no line at all because it looks trustworthy.

Keep the printed copy where the work happens

Post the sheet by the entry door, and keep a copy in whatever notebook or visit log your household uses. When you replace a line, replace every copy and throw the old page away so nobody calls a dead number from a stale sheet. A sheet that lives only on your phone does not help the person who arrives at the door and needs to reach someone.

What the sheet does not replace

The sheet connects people. It does not decide what care is needed, and it is not a plan. Health questions go to the family's doctor, and the sheet should say so at the top. For the wider plan of who does what around the house, see building the non-medical support ring. When you interview agencies, use what to ask before you hire anyone and add a question about how the agency tells families when its contacts change.