Richard Dusenbury, Ferndale, MI has been a DCW since age 20 when he took care of his grandmother. He is a certified nursing assistant, medical assistant, photography buff, speaks fluent French, and does mission work in Ghana with his church. He’s a DCW because he likes people, it reflects his Christian values, it allows him to engage in meaningful work within his own health limits, and “If you’re taking care of people that are less fortunate than you, you feel a lot better about your own situation however bad that may be at that time.”
Richard worked for years with the Army while owning an adult family home after which he and his then wife maintained one client who lived with them for 23 years. He’s also worked for different agencies including one for people who had committed “sexual crimes but had too low of an IQ to be put into jail so they put them in homes and they were watched one on one.” He says he never takes a female client because “I don’t want to put myself at risk for any kind of sexual abuse [claim]. Professionally, it would be career changing, career ending.”
At times, male clients are assigned to him because they have been inappropriate with female DCWs. “There’s always people that need male caregivers. It’s a very high-demand [job] but a lot of men don’t want to take care of people or…they don’t like the pay.”
Richard has faced danger and injury multiple times but for him, unjust accusations by family members of a medical error or of stealing is one of the hardest aspects of being a DCW. In addition to jeopardizing his job, he says, “I take it very seriously. It’s difficult because [family] may only come to see their parent once every month. You’ve been taking care of that person every single day. You know what’s going on with that client better than the relative does, and you’re not given any credit for that. You’re told that you messed up this, you messed up that. Why are you doing this? Why are you doing that? That really hurts because you’re trying really hard and are then told that you’re not doing a good job by somebody who’s never even there.”