Our Journey: From CaringStay to Steady Companion

Five years ago while I was working full-time elsewhere, I came up with what seemed to me like a good idea. CaringStay.  Everyone I talked to about it agreed. The plan was that there are many good and kind older people with a spare bedroom. We wanted to create an environment where these older people could offer respite care in their homes, a type of homestay, and so linking home-owners with people who faced going home alone after hospital treatment.  We found a team of people who were able to offer the care we needed, developed a web application to model the available homes, went to market and “CareBNB” was born.

As much as we wanted it to, the CareBNB model didn’t quite take off, but through our journey in building the we discovered something better. People were frequently asking us to help them stay independent and comfortable in their own homes, rather than in hosted care. People began asking for support for all sorts of different things. We happily did what we were asked and built a practical home-help service, still called CaringStay.

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We had discussions with people in the medical and retirement village fields and even calls from Kiwis overseas. They all wanted the same thing.  Someone to support people, who were otherwise alone. A trusted companion.

It had been staring me in the face the whole time. People need companionship at difficult times: a reliable, friendly presence. Someone in their corner. A steady companion. 

This became our clear focus 

Today, we might get a call directly from the person who needs our help, or from a son, daughter, or friend who can't be there in person and really, really wants to know someone reliable is. 

We've helped people move home, met people in transit at the airport, stood in for carers on holiday, taken people to hospital appointments, accompanied older people to visit the mall, and stayed overnight with people after a minor op. We can do it all.

The name CaringStay no longer reflects what we do. Steady Companion does. 

Steady Companion is a non-medical companion service working in nearly all centres in NZ.

We can be there, whenever and wherever we're needed, and we love it.