In-Home Vietnamese Speaking Caregivers for Canada’s Seniors

Demand for Vietnamese caregivers in Canada

Vietnamese speaking caregivers come from diverse cultural backgrounds with most Vietnamese Canadians residing in the provinces of Ontario, British Columbia, Alberta, and Quebec. Traditionally, Vietnamese elderly rarely live alone but live with and are cared for by their children at home. In many urban cities in Canada there has been some movement away from this trend arising from children moving away from home to build aspiring careers in cities across Canada and the U.S., only to find it too complicated to return on a timely basis to attend to aging parents. This trend, expected to continue, will fuel the growing demand for in-home caregivers by family members who cannot be present to support loved ones in crisis.

The ideal Vietnamese speaking caregiver speaks and understands the Vietnamese language and may speak another Asian language such as Khmer, Thai, or Chinese depending on their country of origin. Vietnamese speaking caregivers who came to Canada as immigrants from Vietnam, Cambodia or Thailand will be very familiar with Vietnamese traditions and customs. Vietnamese speaking caregivers are likely to have been family caregivers in their own family and will know what it takes to care for an aging or disabled Vietnamese person. Vietnamese speaking caregivers will bring with them a strong sense of family values and this will be reflected by the way they advocate for and provide care and build relationships with clients and their family members. From simple acts such as cooking meals for their clients or offering emotional support in difficult times, Vietnamese speaking caregivers show just how deeply they understand the value of family and family connections. They will know how to speak to clients in a caring, confident, conscientious, and respectful manner and how to provide essential culture-sensitive care, assist with personal care, help with daily household tasks, escort the elderly or disabled to medical or therapy appointments and provide companionship.

Cultural Competence of Vietnamese Home Care Workers

The competence of Vietnamese home care workers is driven by Vietnamese cultural norms and traditions and the influence of Cambodian and Thai cultural practices that support communal care and mindfulness. Vietnamese people believe in maintaining family unity. They maintain strong ties with extended family members and care for their own elderly and elderly in their community. This communal belief that everyone should take part in caring for the elderly is strongly instilled into the Vietnamese culture and the emphasis of community over individualism ensures each member of the community will have access to proper healthcare and support services. Vietnamese culture places a high value on respecting elders by listening attentively and showing reverence when visiting them or inviting them into their homes.

Language Skills of Vietnamese Speaking Caregivers

Caregivers caring for Vietnamese speaking elderly should know how to speak the Vietnamese language and may have some familiarity with the languages spoken in Cambodia and Thailand.

Vietnamese people in Canada mostly come from Vietnam and the adjacent countries of Cambodia and Thailand. Those who emigrated from Vietnam speak the Vietnamese language which has many regional dialects, each having its own unique characteristics and pronunciation. The most well-known are Northern Vietnamese, Central Vietnamese, and Southern Vietnamese. Northern Vietnamese is commonly spoken by immigrants from Hanoi, Central Vietnamese is spoken in the city of Huế, and Southern Vietnamese is common amongst migrants from Ho Chi Minh City. Vietnamese. Ethnic Vietnamese and Chinese from Cambodia countries speak Khmer, the official language of Cambodia, a language that possesses its own unique writing system. Ethnic Vietnamese from Thai may speak Central or Bangkok Thai, or to a lesser degree Northern Thai or Laos Pasaai.

Cultural Perspectives of Vietnamese in Canada

Vietnamese diaspora in Canada live mostly in thriving urban communities in Toronto, Hamilton, Ottawa, Vancouver, Montreal, Edmonton and Calgary. The first wave of Vietnamese immigrants consisted mostly of middle-class immigrants able to speak French and or English arrived in the mid-1970's after the fall of Saigon. The second wave were Southern Vietnamese refugees, many of Chinese descent, who became known as “boat people” arrived in the early 1980’s to escape the new regime. Another wave came in the late 1980s and 1990s as both refugees and immigrant classes of post-war Vietnam.
In their journey to assimilate into a new culture, newly arrived Vietnamese in Canada experienced challenges finding employment, language challenges, poverty, mental health and post-traumatic disorders causing significant family disharmony leading to gang violence, drugs and prostitution. Eventually many of these challenges were overcome through community effort and engagement and today, Vietnamese communities in Canada are growing and thriving financially from local communal cultural investment and business efforts. Many Vietnamese immigrants have achieved personal prosperity from making a living as self-employed owners of family businesses that include restaurants, clothing manufacturing and design shops, convenience stores and supermarkets, pharmacies and professional success working as doctors, dentists, scientists, engineers and technology.

In traditional Vietnamese families, aging elderly family members are held in high esteem and cared for by their sons and daughters at home. Vietnamese culture and traditions have similarity to traditional Chinese culture and traditions and has also been dominated by Buddhist and Christian values. Many Vietnamese people in Canada still believe in maintaining family unity and have strong family business and financial ties with their siblings, cousins, aunts, uncles and grandparents, practice ancestral worship, go to Buddhist temples to pray, celebrate the Lunar New Year, and use holistic approaches for health care such as acupuncture, massage and herbal medicine to heal and prevent illness.

Other Desirable Skills for Vietnamese Speaking Caregivers

In addition to culture-sensitivity, Vietnamese speaking caregivers must also know how to use non-verbal communication to express filial piety. Through body language and facial expressions, caregivers can show respect and empathy to their loved ones. For example, bowing or folding the hands in prayer are ways of expressing one’s humility to elders or superiors, making eye contact effectively helps convey respect and understanding, and hand gestures to express gratitude or apologize for any wrongdoing. If the caregiver is a woman, the role expectation will be that she will be responsible for providing physical care such as bathing or dressing, and if the caregiver is a man, his role will lean more towards providing emotional support.

Vietnamese Friendly Care Plan Considerations

Vietnamese elders have found to be at risk for lung and liver cancers, lymphoma, heart disease, stroke, hypertension, and diabetes. Their susceptibility to these chronic illnesses results from nutritional deficiencies in the Vietnamese diet and other practices common to the Vietnamese culture such as high mental distress associated with post-traumatic syndrome of being in refugee camps, smoking, high sodium and high starch diets.

Vietnamese friendly care plans should specify preferred Vietnamese language or dialect, preferred communication methods, how to engage family in care of the elder, caregiver gender expectations regarding personal care needs, suggestions on how best to show respect and reverence to the Vietnamese elder and when visiting families and friends, times to take medications or dates to escort the client to medical appointments, herbal treatments and therapies to address specific health risks and medical needs, scheduled time for stress reduction, hobbies such as gardening, listening to traditional music, exercise of mind and body through yoga, meditation and prayer or going to temple or church, specific dates of Vietnamese family celebrations and special community events and food preferences or restrictions. Vietnamese elderly and their families enjoy Chinese style foods such as dim sum, crispy roast pork and stir fry as well as traditional Vietnamese spiced grilled chicken, beef, pork and seafood and traditional pho noodle soups.

Finding Employment as a Vietnamese Home Care Provider

Asian Caregivers is a values-focused company that was established with a mission to connect a caring community of Asian language caregivers with clients seeking at home care for themselves or loved ones. Asian Caregivers envisions its online platform www.asiancaregivers.ca will become the virtual meeting place of choice where sincere, reliable, trustworthy culture-sensitive caregivers can promote themselves and provide the best care to the elderly who have embraced the choice to live at home.

Asian Caregivers understands how important it is to pair Vietnamese speaking in-home workers with compatible clients. To find a job as a Vietnamese speaking home care worker, personal support worker, or housekeeper join the Asian Caregivers online community and register. Please visit the Asian Caregivers platform and register for free now! https://www.asiancaregivers.ca/register_caregivers?caregivers/1