MF Family Home Care provides respite care on Cape Cod for families where one person is doing all of it. This service is not for your parent. It is for you.
Each household needs a different mix. Below is what this looks like in practice.
Enough for an appointment of your own, a haircut, a lunch that is not interrupted.
Enough to leave the Cape, see your own children, or sleep.
So the person doing the nights gets a real one. This is frequently the most valuable version.
For a holiday, a wedding, a surgery of your own, or a genuine break before you break.
When the family caregiver is suddenly ill or called away, and the household has no plan B.
One call, a free visit at home, and a written plan you can change. Most families begin smaller than they expect.
Tell us what is happening and what a normal day looks like now compared with six months ago.
We come to the house and look at the practical things — the stairs, the bathroom, the kitchen, the hours when nobody is around.
Most families begin smaller than they expect and adjust within the first month. No long-term contract is required to begin.
Using respite does not mean you have failed, and it does not mean the next step is a facility.
The opposite is true in practice. Families who use respite keep a parent at home for years longer than families who do not, because the arrangement stays survivable. The ones who refuse help until they are exhausted are the ones who end up making a decision in a hospital corridor, on the worst day, with no options left.
Booking a Tuesday afternoon now is a strategy, not a surrender.
Every caregiver clears a Massachusetts CORI background check before entering a client’s home, and MF Family Home Care carries insurance covering the work our caregivers do in your home. Ask any agency for both — a household letting someone in unsupervised should not have to wonder. We match caregivers to households deliberately — schedule, temperament, language and the specific help required — because a good match is what makes someone accept help at all.
MF Family Home Care is owned by Marlene Plouf, a Certified Nurse Aide registered with the Massachusetts Department of Public Health under CNA54796 — a credential with a number the state can verify. Very few agencies in this region put an owner’s certification in writing.
We provide non-medical home care. We do not perform skilled nursing, we do not operate a hospice program, and we do not bill Medicare.
If your parent needs wound care, IV therapy or a hospice team, you need a licensed home health agency, and we will tell you that on the phone rather than take the case and improvise.
Nobody publishes this, so families end up calling five agencies to build a picture. Here is the honest range.
Across Massachusetts, in-home care generally runs between $35 and $46 an hour, with a statewide planning average near $38. Cape Cod sits above that — in Barnstable, home care can reach $50 an hour. The reason is supply: Barnstable County has one of the oldest populations in the country and a caregiver workforce squeezed by the seasonal housing market.
Companion hours sit at the lower end of the range, hands-on personal care in the middle. Overnight and live-in schedules are quoted differently from an hourly rate, because a caregiver who sleeps in the house is not billed like one working an active shift. Ask any agency to explain which one they are quoting before you compare two numbers, or you will be comparing figures that do not mean the same thing.
Your real number depends on how many hours you need, whether nights and weekends are involved, and how much hands-on help is required. We give a figure on the phone rather than a brochure.
The person receiving care is not the only one whose week changes.
Adult children stop driving over at lunchtime to check on something. The daughter who has been managing appointments, prescriptions and groceries from two towns away gets a report instead of a guess. The spouse who has been doing all of it alone gets to be a husband or a wife again rather than only a caregiver.
That shift matters as much as the practical help. Families who bring in support early tend to keep a parent at home for years longer than families who wait, because the arrangement stays survivable for everyone in it — not just for the person in the bed.
We serve families throughout Barnstable County, including Bourne, Sandwich, Falmouth, Mashpee, Barnstable, Hyannis, Yarmouth, West Yarmouth, Dennis, Harwich, Brewster, Chatham, Orleans, Eastham, Wellfleet, Truro and Provincetown — and across Massachusetts, including Boston, Worcester, Lowell, Framingham, Brockton and Plymouth.
Marlene is very caring, trustworthy, and attentive. She takes excellent care of my father, and I highly recommend MF Family Home Care.
I highly recommend her caregiving services. She is kind, compassionate, reliable, and truly cares about the well-being of her clients. She is patient, attentive, and always goes above and beyond to make sure people feel safe, comfortable, and respected.
Marlene is an excellent and responsible caregiver for my sister. She is thoughtful and kind. I would recommend her highly to anyone who has a wheelchair bound relative who simultaneously has Alzheimer’s disease.
We answer 24 hours a day, seven days a week. The first conversation costs nothing and commits you to nothing.
The questions families ask us most, answered plainly.
No. Regular, scheduled respite works far better than crisis cover, for the family and for the person being cared for.
Often less than families fear, particularly if the same caregiver comes each time and gets to know her. The transition is easier when it is routine rather than exceptional.
Yes. Tell us as early as you can, since extended cover takes more scheduling.
Yes, and for many families the overnight version is what changes everything.
Usually within days. If it is an emergency, call and say so — we answer at any hour.
Usually within a few days. We answer the phone at night and on weekends, because these decisions are rarely made during business hours.
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