Case study · Work example 02
Caregiver Onboarding & Enablement
Family Resource Home Care · Lead Field Training Specialist
A fast-growing home-care company needed every new caregiver — in every branch, in every state — to start their first shift the same way. This is how the onboarding program was rebuilt to hold that line.
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- My role
- Lead Field Training Specialist — instructional design, video production, and rollout support
- The build
- Branch-delivered onboarding: a PowerPoint package holding an orientation video series and its supporting components
- Tools
- Camtasia + Audiate for video and narration; PowerPoint as the delivery shell every branch already had
- Reach
- One onboarding standard, delivered by caregiver managers in every branch, across multiple states
The problem
Family Resource Home Care was expanding across multiple states, and caregiver onboarding was riding along on whatever each branch had time for. Self-guided training couldn't hold consistency at that pace: a new caregiver's first days looked different in every location, and the rules that protect clients — clocking in, privacy, boundaries, safety — are exactly the ones that can't be allowed to drift.
The approach
The bet was simple: standardize the content, not the trainer. Instead of asking every branch to teach the same things differently, the program gave caregiver managers one package to deliver — slides, produced videos, and the supporting components — so a branch in one state ran the same first day as a branch in another.
The orientation videos carry the delivery. Each one walks the learner through the job the way the job actually happens — a day in the life, from packing a go bag to calling off correctly — so every rule appears where it lives in the workday, attached to the client it protects, rather than as a policy list to memorize.
What shipped
A complete orientation video series produced in Camtasia and Audiate — fully captioned, mixing live footage, flat illustration, and slide builds — packaged in PowerPoint for branch delivery. The series covers the areas a new caregiver has to get right from day one:
- A Day in the Life — one ordinary shift in order: go bag, arrival, care plans, the scheduling app, clocking in, phones, and call-offs
- Client Rights, HIPAA & PHI — what clients have the right to, what counts as protected health information, and the caregiver's daily responsibilities to both
- Safety, Respect & Professionalism — professional boundaries: the difference between a crossing and a violation, and what to do about each
- Health & Safety Essentials — the non-negotiables: safe food temperatures, infection control, and immediate incident reporting
Design decisions that carried it
Rules arrive as consequences, not policies — every requirement is shown protecting a specific person before it appears as text. The tempting shortcut is always named out loud (texting a call-off, skipping a care-plan step) so the honest mistake is the one the training plans for. Software is taught as a do-it-now activity inside the video, with escalation framed as competence: reach out to your branch — don't wait until you're at the client's door. And every video is captioned, because caregivers watch in break rooms, on buses, and in branch offices.
What it changed
One onboarding standard, delivered the same way in every state
Every branch got the same starting line. As the company scaled, the training team grew from 2 to 14 — and this package was the playbook those new trainers picked up and delivered. The outcomes claimed here are design contributions — consistency of delivery and a program built to scale — stated the way I'd defend them in an interview.
Artifacts
Available with this case study: a representative storyboard of the “A Day in the Life” video and a one-page first-shift job aid recreated from the program's content.
- Storyboard — A Day in the Life (PDF, 3 pages)
- Job aid — Your First Shift quick reference (PDF, 1 page)
- Project page on the studio site
Client work described as design contributions; program content de-identified where appropriate.