Keith & Barbara of Seniors Helping Seniors Sevenoaks, Tonbridge, West Malling, discuss their experience of starting their own home care franchise.

Keith & Barbara Reddy own and manage Seniors Helping Seniors in Sevenoaks, Tonbridge, West Malling.

Both Keith and Barbara went to school in Tunbridge Wells, they married in 1975 and raised their two daughters in Sevenoaks. Both daughters stayed in the area and Barbara and Keith are now very proud grandparents to five beautiful granddaughters.

Having lived locally all their lives and volunteered on pivotal community projects, both know what “community” means and they have solid knowledge of the whole West Kent area.

“Over recent years we have had parents and other close relatives reaching the stage in life that means they need support to remain in their own homes.”

Keith says, “dealing with their various needs and the state organisations struggling to provide appropriate support with inadequate funding, has been a wake-up call and an education.

Unknowingly it has shown us how desperately Seniors Helping Seniors® is needed in the UK”

Keith has over thirty year’s experience in the Construction, Rail, Plant and Civil Engineering industry and he is a Fellow of the Institute of Direct & Digital Marketing.

Barbara’s experience is Banking and Insurance. Barbara regulated complaints and Risk Analysis taking early retirement from Barclays in 2017.

What inspired you to start a Seniors Helping Seniors?

I’d say we have always wanted to work for ourselves. We have researched many options over the years. The key driver to own a Seniors Helping Seniors franchise was the opportunity to offer a much needed “everyone wins” service to our community.

By everyone winning I mean, helping people secure meaningful roles in society in the later phases of their lives was the bonus to us. It is widely accepted that it becomes more difficult for the over 50s, to find meaningful work, particularly if they don’t want to work full time, and we are excited to be helping to change that for people.

Seniors Helping Seniors USA impressed us. We loved what Sally and Christian have done in the UK and the progress the other UK franchisees have made in a short time. The ethos of the company is collaboration and we had free access to all franchisees before we made our decision. We spoke to the franchisees in Guildford and Harrow in addition to all the meetings in Canterbury.

We felt that territory wise, our area is strong compared to the pilot in East Kent. The reviews from carers working for Seniors Helping Seniors® and customers using the services both in the UK and in the USA are outstanding in every one of the 300+ offices and the year on year growth ticked our boxes, we feel we are on the cusp of something amazing

For us there was no wonder the number of franchise branches is growing each month and we are excited to have been chosen to continue the work in our part of Kent.

We wanted a management opportunity which is people based. The services Seniors Helping Seniors® provide are non-medical, non-personal care. They are the essentials such as well being, companionship, transportation, shopping, light housework and it was important to us that the work itself appealed. This is a management opportunity but we want to be hands on – it’s just our way.

We loved the flexibility of the day to day.

The company doesn’t dictate what we do, our clients choose and then we organise everything.

We could see clearly that this is the type of care people want to receive and the work carers want to do.

Barbara said, “The Seniors Helping Seniors® carers enjoy their role and feel truly appreciated. We liked the idea of carers working when they want to, with our support and back up. All the systems and approaches make everything super easy, natural and fuss free yet everything is super secure. Keith and I would trust our own mothers to this service”

“The low initial investment and low overheads of working from home suited us. And the fact that these services are ‘out of scope for the regulators’ appealed to us because we can join in the great work Seniors Helping Seniors is doing, without all the red tape of and risk analysis”. said Barbara. “I am naturally very cautious and I know there is a better way. 60% of the care people need is not personal care or medical care so there is a huge need for care that is not regulated.”

“Keith and Barbara have experienced the power of people’s desire to remain in their own home despite flagging energy levels and ill health. Caring for parents, elderly relatives and their friends and colleagues in that community have provided very valuable insight and they have deep knowledge” Christian said.

“Keith and Barbara know that nationally and locally, there is a severe lack of support and many people end up in a care home or in and out of hospital unnecessarily. They have first- hand experience of how planning elderly care and early intervention can change everything for the better. Sally and I are delighted to have them on board.”

Keith says “The Seniors Helping Seniors elderly home care franchise came to us as a real breath of fresh air, the business will provide us the futures we have been looking for a long time and it as a great opportunity to help our fellow senior citizens. The sprightly and not so sprightly!”

We sought the advice of family, friends and professionals and every single person told us “Yes! do Seniors Helping Seniors®”

“Our training was five star. It helps that training is delivered by the people who launched and still manage the pilot office.

The support thereafter has been just right. We feel we are running our own business but we are not alone. We followed the launch programme very carefully and I’m delighted to say, our phone rang with customer and carer enquiries, just when we were promised it would”

Keith and Barbara say “The rest is down to us. We know we can work as hard at this as we like and we are looking forward to our future working with the amazing people in West Kent. We are very proud to show our family and friends what we are doing”