The tour is the easy part. The harder part is the week, because a few hours of company, a meal run, and an errand list only work when they land on the right days. Before you book a visit with any agency, write out one ordinary week of your parent's home life and carry that page into the office. The agency's answers to that page will tell you more than any brochure.
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.
Build the week on paper first
Start with the real calendar, not an ideal one. Mark the days someone from the family is already present, the days a neighbor or relative is free, and the hours that are empty. Then mark the three kinds of help you are shopping for: company, meals, and errands. Company usually means someone to talk with, play a game with, or walk outside with. Meals means preparing or warming a meal, not planning the menu for the month. Errands means a grocery run, a trip to the post office, or a store pickup from a list you hand over. Light housekeeping is the last item, and it is the one most likely to stretch beyond what you meant.
Put the week in front of the agency
Bring the page to the office and walk through it day by day. For each block, ask whether it fits the agency's companion or homemaker service, who would cover it, and what they would need from you in writing before the first visit. Listen for the word no. An agency that will take a Tuesday grocery run but not a Thursday lunch has told you something useful. An agency that says yes to everything without asking about the house has told you something too.
Ask what the aide does not do
Every agency will describe its services in the most generous terms. Your job is to find the edges. Ask which rooms are cleaned and which are not, whether laundry is done in the home or taken out, whether the aide will move furniture or climb to reach a shelf, and whether the aide will drive your parent or only drive for an errand. Ask who decides when the list changes. If the answer is the family, write that down. If the answer is the office, ask how quickly the office responds and how the change is recorded.
Test the handoff points
Most weeks break at the seams: the day the regular helper is out, the errand that runs long, the meal that was not in the fridge when the aide arrived. Ask the agency how it covers a missed day and how it tells you about a change before the next visit. Ask where the family sees the visit notes and how often they are written. The guide on building the non-medical support ring goes deeper on who holds each seam, and what to ask before you hire anyone gives you the wording to use on the phone.
Leave room for the surprise
Plan one open block in the week that no one has assigned. A weekday afternoon with no task on the list gives the family room to catch a change early, and it gives the agency a fair test of whether the schedule can flex. Write the week on one page, keep a copy at home, and bring it to the next call. You are not looking for a perfect plan. You are looking for an agency willing to work from the plan you actually have.