VIDEO. To give an alternative to nursing homes, she welcomes the elderly into her home

Former animator in Ehpad, Laura Evrard wanted to become a foster family for the elderly. She takes care of François, Betty and Yvette at home. Brut met them.

In one day, I go from mum, cook, worker, housekeeper, caregiver…“Laura Evrard lives in Haute-Vienne. After working for 3 years as an animator in nursing homes, she decided to open a reception at her home, with her family. “I wanted to create a place to live for the elderly, to find an intermediary for these nursing homes which are much too big and where we don’t really have time to take care of the people who are there, who have spent all their working life”, she explains.

“I have arranged the house so that everyone can have their privacy”

She then takes care of three people, François, Betty and Yvette. “Yvette brought her chest of drawers, brought her frames. She recreated her little home, here, to feel good”, says Laura. “It’s family, it’s much more pleasant and enriching, because there is the smile of the children, and then we joke, you know”, thinks Yvette.

The children are also involved in foster family life. “I explained to them that I was going to be a foster family, that I was going to welcome people, but that if things went badly or if things weren’t going well with such and such a person, nothing was set in stone, that we could discuss (…). I explained all this to my children and in the end, they lived it very well, because I arranged the house so that everyone could have their privacy.”, explains Laura.

If the job of foster family was better known, more valued and people knew that there was this alternative, in fact, we could be a springboard for either the nursing home, or not the nursing home at all”, she concludes.


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