We were previously, until this past week, receiving Habilitation Services, Attendant Care Services and Respite Care Services for our 16 yr old daughter with cerebral palsy through Affinity Family Care.
Affinity's signature line of 'You're Never Alone With Affinity', as we abruptly learned, is far from the truth. Our experience with Affinity Family Care has been so overwhelmingly unprofessional, malicious, unsafe and heartbreaking that we have filed appropriate reports for an investigation request with the Arizona Dept of Economic Security - Division of Developmental Disabilities.
One of our main concerns with Affinity is that we were asked to recruit for our open daily attendant, respite and habilitation position - including placing (paid and unpaid) ads to recruit applicants, screen and interview applicants and then send over applicants we'd like to hire to Affinity for them to process the paperwork. It is unbelievable that Affinity refused to get engaged in even recruiting a caregiver for our daughter and our family. We addressed our concerns with Tracy Stewart, the owner of Affinity, and then decided to bring on another agency that would be more willing to recruit for a care provider for our daughter.
The very same day that Tracy learned we were planning on working with another agency, we lost two of our care providers - whom suddenly 'no longer wish to return to our home environment' and Tracy requested that we and DDD release Affinity Family Care from any and all requirement and duty to provide care and care providers for our daughter. Insult to injury - the two care providers Tracy either reassigned or talked into stopping care for our daughter, were care providers WE recruited, interviewed, hired and sent to Affinity for employment, all because Affinity refused to recruit on our behalf. We wholeheartedly believe Tracy acted maliciously to ensure that during our, now abrupt, transition to another agency, we were left without critical care for our daughter. The position Tracy put us in undoubtedly created stress while we frantically searched for back up care to prevent an unsafe environment.
Having worked with Affinity for close to a full year, we have also experienced the following issues from care providers Affinity had previously assigned to us: confirmed theft from our home, injury sustained to our daughter's teeth from negligent care, no shows, repeatedly late arrivals, caregivers sleeping during their shift and questionable care when our daughter was not being given water during full shifts - which would lessen the care providers need for undergarment changes. These actions were all from care providers we requested Affinity not send back into our home- even though Affinity told us at least they are 'a body' for basic safety - we are appalled this is the level of care that Affinity allowed themselves to accept and send into our family home. Tracy even once eluded that we would not need to recruit had we just kept the providers she sent our way- but how could we? They were unreliable, negligent, unprofessional, not trustworthy and even endangered our daughter with their lack of care. It is apparent to us, now, that Affinity Family Care providers mirror the quality of the owner, Tracy Stewart - we do not believe she has acted in good faith, morally, ethically, or bottom line, in the best interest of our daughter. read more
