During her previous career as a case manager respected for being hands-on with her clients, social work, foster care, and behavioral health expert Stephanie Ann Jackson ultimately decided that she wanted to help many more people – both clients and caregivers. This desire led to her opening and serving since 2003 as the director of AAA Care, LLC, an accredited business in Louisiana with a Better Business Bureau A+ rating. With nearly 90 employees, Ms. Jackson’s company provides home care services for children and adults with developmental disabilities, including bathing, feeding, dressing, grooming, bringing them to doctor appointments, shopping, and going out to church, movies, dining, and more.
Among her numerous responsibilities and duties that put the individuals she serves first, Ms. Jackson oversees all employees who enter people’s homes to provide health care, manages payroll, leads weekly meetings with the accountant, ensures that all of the homes being serviced are accurately scheduled with the case management agency via conference calls, explains the purpose of each client’s doctor appointment, reports whether a client went to the hospital, works to uphold quality assurance, and attends board meetings to discuss the latest goings at her agency.
For her dedication and consistent excellence, Ms. Jackson was recognized with a proclamation from the City of Jefferson Parish for her more than two decades of service. Crediting her success to her organization, she is proudest of her ability to ensure through AAA Care, LLC, that the clients who have no family are given access to round-the-clock services. What separates her and her company is a willingness to go above and beyond for her clients, helping them, as examples, to pay some of their bills and buy groceries, supplies, and other necessities. She even fought to uphold some of her clients’ wishes to live in their own apartments or homes rather than in nursing facilities so that they could experience a better quality of life in their personal residences.
Ms. Jackson holds a master’s degree in American family counseling from Trinity Christian University in Metairie, Louisiana, and a bachelor’s degree in sociology from Southern University in Baton Rouge, Louisiana. Often sought out by industry professionals as an experienced and trusted resource, she has imparted wisdom through speaking at events and writing on her company’s website to highlight a variety of relevant topics. Titles of articles she has authored include, yet are not limited to, “Coping with Caregiver Burnout: Nurturing the Nurturers”; “Ensuring Inclusivity: The Americans with Disabilities Act”; and “Managing Challenging Behavior in Patients with Intellectual Disabilities.” At the beginning of each article, Ms. Jackson thoroughly summarizes the current state or the pros and cons of each vital subject, then gives detailed tips and strategies for dealing with them. For instance, she listed various ways to recognize burnout in a caregiver, since this condition may not be immediately apparent. The signs, she wrote, can include constant fatigue and sleep disturbances, increased irritability, withdrawal from social activities, neglecting personal needs, physical symptoms such as body aches or weight fluctuations due to stress, and forgetfulness or lack of concentration.
Always learning as well as advising, the lesson that Ms. Jackson says has contributed the most to her professional growth is to be patient during the inevitable rough patches and know that everything will work out eventually. Imparting similar encouragement to her clients and as a volunteer member of the Louisiana Supported Living Network, she hopes that in the very near future, everyone she seeks to help will be able to resume benefiting from much-needed programs, including those that specialized in providing housing and jobs before they were suspended or cut during the pandemic.
Ms. Jackson is the mother of eight children. She enjoys spending time with her family, going to church, shopping, listening to music, and pampering herself.
