In this conversation, Deputy Sheriff Matt Sizemore discusses the importance and process of welfare checks (sometimes called wellness checks) for caregivers and their families. He explains what constitutes a welfare check, the signs that may prompt one, and the procedures followed by law enforcement. Matt emphasizes that no concern is too small and that caregivers should feel empowered to call for a welfare check if something seems off.
Katie Wilkinson (00:02)
Welcome to Givers where we enroll, support and pay family caregivers through state programs. Today we are talking to Matt Sizemore, who is the Deputy Sheriff with Columbia County Sheriff's Office.
So Matt, welcome. Thank you for being here and joining us. Maybe you can just say a quick hello and then give us like a high level overview. What is a welfare check?
Matt Sizemore (00:43)
Yeah. so yeah, first and foremost, thank you for having me. happy to be here and talk about this, this topic. been in law enforcement for, for eight years and, and doing welfare checks, I feel like every day of those eight years. so, yeah, just the, the, the 30,000 foot view, is just that welfare checks are simply when someone notices something out of the ordinary, whether,
Matt Sizemore (01:06)
It could be a bunch of different things, but that they want us to come in and just verify that everything is, is okay. It's kosher, whatever you want to call it. That, that everything, everybody, everything and everybody is okay.
Katie Wilkinson (01:21)
Awesome. Yeah. So at Givers, we mostly are supporting caregivers that live in the home with their care recipient, but we want to provide resources and education to all different versions of caregiving, family caregivers. So that's for many people caring from a distance. So I guess my question is, what signs or situations might prompt a caregiver or a neighbor to request a welfare check for their loved one?
Matt Sizemore (01:45)
Yeah, so there's a lot of different signs. It tends to vary with every person just because the people who are closest to, I guess we'll say the patient in this sense know when when something's wrong. And so we tend to not have a firm definition on things to look for just because it could be
It could be anything. know, so and so hasn't called me in an hour and to you or to whoever's calling, that's abnormal because they get a phone call every hour. To us, it's like, all right, well, they haven't called you in an hour. You know, they could be busy doing something. But to that person, it's it's irregular and it warrants a welfare check. Majority of the time, especially with neighbors, it can go from anything just to
You know, they have a car in the driveway, but they haven't seen him in a little while. to kind of the drastic thing of, Hey, it looks like about five or six days worth of males piling up in the mailbox and mailboxes overflowing. and you know, the lights are on the TV's home, but I'm knocking on the door and nobody's, nobody's entering the door. there could be other things where, you know, it could be.
just concerns for safety, whether, you we go back to what's abnormal, just getting to know like the patient, making sure that, know, it's a relationship that you know, the ins and outs and, and you could be getting, you know, weird texts, text messages or a phone call that just doesn't quite sound right. A voice in the background that all of sudden, hey, that's, I'm pretty sure they live alone. So there shouldn't be any voices in the background.
different things like that that could warrant us coming out just to make sure that everything's okay. At the end of the day, would, we as a Sheriff's Office and most police departments, everybody, that when we conduct these welfare checks, we would rather go and get there and nothing has happened, everything's fine, then we never get a phone call, then we have to show up when things are really bad.
Katie Wilkinson (04:02)
Yeah, I think that raises a really good point is like, if someone, a family caregiver, a neighbor, whomever is considering something feels off, should I call for a welfare check? You know, is there, I guess, sort of what are like the limits? Is there anything that's too small to be considered or that or that you as a sheriff's office wouldn't go and do welfare check for or maybe redirect someone to a different resource?
Matt Sizemore (04:25)
The only time that we've ever that I know of that we've ever denied a welfare check is something that's kind of it's different than than the the relationship that we're talking about now. The only time I've ever seen it denied is is typically when we're dealing with something where it's two parents that aren't living together that are kind of doing the welfare check on the kids to
to annoy the other person, which doesn't have a whole lot to do with what we're talking about now. When it comes to doing a welfare check on people with mental health issues, people, the elderly who need specific care, stuff like that, there's really nothing, there's nothing too small. Like I said, it's, we lean on the cautious side.
when it comes to responding to these, because it's like I said before, what's abnormal to the person calling is not, may not be abnormal to me, but I don't know this person that I'm going to check on from Adam. And so, you know, I need to know what you see, why you feel it's a need. And if you feel like it's a need, then we'll go out and do it.
Katie Wilkinson (05:30)
Yeah, I I find that very comforting. I think of experiences with my own dad where it's like, you know, I explained a situation to a friend and it really doesn't sound drastic, it, or maybe not drastic, but it doesn't sound out of the ordinary, given our relationship it is. I mean, I think that's really good for people to know that like, basically nothing is too small. I guess the next question would be like, how does a welfare check actually happen? Who do you call? Who comes out? What's the process of a welfare check?
Matt Sizemore (05:40)
So depending on depending on the the drasticness of the situation, obviously warrants, you know, a 911 call versus excuse me, versus a just a non emergency call. So every police department, every Sheriff's Office has a non emergency number that you can call. There are a couple different websites that websites that list all of them out.
So no matter where you're living, if you're living here and, mom is living in Timbuktu, Texas, you just put that, you know, you put her address into one of those websites and it'll pop up exactly what number you need to call so that you can contact the local, police department or sheriff's office. basically what we would do is we would, we would come out and just using kind of common sense techniques.
The way that I normally approach it is I'll go and I'll give three knocks on the door. I knock progressively louder each time just to make sure it's not somebody's asleep or has the TV too loud and they can't hear me radio up, whatever. So I'll knock three times or do three increments of knocking, however you want to say that, progressively louder. If I'm not getting a response then,
I'm gonna go ahead and check and see you know what if there's a door unlocked if there's a window open something that could potentially give me access to the house not quite gonna use that yet, but I'm gonna go ahead and do that just to see if Later on down the line if we need to go in the house to make sure this person's okay That we have the ability to that we're not breaking down the door or anything like that because we would like to avoid property damage if at all possible and
I'll walk around the house. I'll probably take at that point, I'll take time to contact the family member, the complainant, the neighbor, just to get a few more details. Cause sometimes there's a disconnect between our dispatchers and what's on our call screen and what we actually, what information we get. And so I would probably take that time to contact them myself and just get a little bit more information. You know, what's going on.
what's the concern are there any health concerns is this person you know this this is when it kind of leans into also like the possible like suicide aspect of it all because we do welfare checks for that as well and so all these things are things that i'm going to need to know because ultimately i have to justify to
courts and to my superiors if I end up going in this house why why I did so like I'll take my most recent one for example we had one where a neighbor was concerned because there was a door dash delivery that was left on the steps since last night the mailbox was overflowing I'm knocking on the door can't get anybody to answer so I'm like okay well I try the front door front door gives right away it opens right away
Um, I take that time to step away, call back, um, or not call back. Cause the neighbor was right next door. Went and talked to the neighbor. said, yeah, she's an elderly lady, um, that, um, has Alzheimer's and just a couple other, other, um, issues. said, okay, um, front door is open. Uh, we're going to go in and we're going to try and see if she's, see if she's okay. Ended up going in, she was asleep.
She's evidently a really heavy sleeper. So it was good. She was perfectly fine. evidently, I believe her daughter lives in the area. If I'm remembering right. And just sent her some food and she forgot that she sent her food. And so it was sitting out there for a while. and so just certain things like that where it's like, okay, you know, we're dealing with, with, the elderly, so older, so, you know, no telling, what kind of
underlying medical issues that there could be that nobody knows about. We're dealing with Alzheimer's patients and making sure, hey, if they're not here, where are they? If they walked away, we need to try and figure out where they went. Just certain things like that, that's like, okay, yeah, I need to go in, I need to do my job, which part of my job is protecting life and verifying that everything's
Katie Wilkinson (10:02)
I think that's a really good example you've just given of like, no, you know, no calls too small. Part of your job is to protect life and help families. I guess in the instance where that wasn't the outcome and there is a health issue, something more concerning, what happens next? Like what happens after the actual check is done? You know, where do you pass off to somebody else to back to the family? What happens? What's the next step?
Matt Sizemore (10:24)
So the, it ranges from a lot of things. I've had welfare checks where I go in and, know, it ends up being where, you know, they haven't seen them or, you know, family member hasn't talked to him in a little while.
And so I get there, there was one where I got there and I can audibly hear somebody yelling for help inside of the house. So at that point, everything's off. We're not holding anything back. We're getting into the house, regardless of how we need to get into the house or not. I think for that one, I think the back door was left unlocked. I didn't have to have to kick anything in luckily, but yeah, we're going in.
ended up being where she had fallen several hours earlier and had broken her hip, I believe it was hip, knee, something in the leg. And so obviously in that situation, it's immediately, you know, we wear radios. I'm already calling to have Fire and EMS en route. Fire usually gets there first just because they're ready to go and there's always a fire station close.
and so in the meantime, it's just rendering medical aid. I'm asking questions like, you know, how old are you? And this is again, if they're coherent, you know, I'm asking how old are they? Where's the pain? How bad is the pain on scale one to 10 questions that, that me, I'm not a medical professional. and so, yeah, I'm not going to be able to get into that, like the, the nitty gritty of what exactly is going on, but we have enough training to help stabilize what's going on.
to get the appropriate information that's going to be helpful for the other first responders coming on scene to be able to assist in the ways and to have the gear coming in that they're going to need. Because what I'm doing is every time they're answering one of those questions and getting them on radio, I'm giving that information to my dispatchers so they can go ahead and give it to the firefighters and the EMTs that are in route. Usually it's
passing it along to them and just, you know, if we had to make entry, then I might do some documentation there. Yeah, if there was anything that I had to do with any of my medical supplies that I have in my vehicle, then I would have to do, you know, documentation, but it's really just setting up. It's doing my best to set up the other first responders coming in for success so that they, when they get there, we can
get this person to back to back to recovery or at least maybe on the way to a hospital. If that's what needs to be obviously worst case scenario would be going in and finding somebody deceased. At that point, you know, things things slow down a lot, but it then becomes a lot more my responsibility of of making sure that number one, this isn't a crime scene.
This isn't something where somebody has maliciously done something to this person and then to Just sealing off the area, you know if if family is on scene Kind of in a very Compassionate way Having to move them out is probably one of the one of the hardest things that we do We we have to be a stonewall
in a situation that's very, very emotional. And then of course, at the end of the day, know, at least in the state of Georgia, the coroner will come out or a deputy coroner will come out to examine the body to make sure that, you know, to verify that there's no that there's no foul play here. And then to they'll take up medication, prescribed medication, and then they'll they'll talk with the family and.
We, at least in Columbia County, we pretty much all of our coroners are very, very sweet and loving people. I like to think that I'm very emotionally tuned in to people, but they're on another level. I guess they've been doing it long enough to where they know how to talk to people when they're in this state of mind. so we hate when it happens. People are emotional beings by nature.
And so, ultimately, that would be what it would be is instead of passing it off to other first responders, we would be holding the scene and waiting to pass it on to the coroner.
Katie Wilkinson (14:23)
Awesome. I I'm not awesome, but that was very thorough. for. Thank you for recapping that. I have to imagine the corners are sensitive and attuned. It seems like a job where you have to be. I guess two follow up questions about, you know, you just mentioned that you sort of follow up with family about next steps, sort of regardless of what happens in this welfare check, you're going to follow up with family. Are there instances where a family member might come with you for a welfare check?
Matt Sizemore (14:50)
It's about 50 50. Most of the time when we're doing welfare checks, typically it's people who are not in the area who are calling because most people, if they're young and well enough and they live in the area, they'll they usually will go and do the welfare checks themselves. And that's when we kind of come in, like they're not able to get into the house.
And so like they're asking us for help and however we can, things like that. But typically when we do welfare checks, if it involves a neighbor, you know, I'm not, I'm not going to bring the neighbor with me because yeah, it's not, it's not a family member. It's not somebody who's directly tied to the situation. But if a family member's on scene, I usually, because you don't know what you're going to find when you go in there. And so I usually,
tell them like, look, you know, I'm going to go in and check things out first, just to make sure that everything's okay. I always, I believe the way that we say things is very important. And so I like to keep it as positive as I can just to make sure that everything's okay. And that I'll usually, I try to crack a joke, like, and make sure, you know, so and so is dressed so you're not walking in on naked. Yeah. It's something to keep the mood up because if I go in there,
and it's going downhill fast, I want my last interaction with them to be good. And so that when I then tell them, hey, this, this and this is about to happen, you're going to have to stay outside. I'm sorry. It's received a lot better, nine times out of 10, because I've already established, even if it's just small rapport, I've already established some sort of rapport. But most of time,
People are calling from, you know, out of state, from out of the area, whatever it may be. And so I'll usually just give them a phone call back when everything's said and done. If it's the extreme of they're going to the hospital, then I would still give them a call back just letting them know, hey, this is what happened. You know, I'm not a medical specialist, but this is what I was told and this is what hospital they're going to. So if you want to start heading this way.
you know, drive safely, but you know, I would probably get here sooner rather than later. And then if it's the, the extreme extreme of someone's passed away, typically the corner would handle contact and first of kin. there are times usually it's after hours or on the weekends that, deputy sheriff or police officer, wherever the person is, is located, we go and make contact in person as opposed to over the phone. Cause nobody,
It's bad news to get already, but nobody wants to get that news over the phone. And so, most places have a policy of if we're trying to make contact with somebody, we're gonna do it in person.
Katie Wilkinson (17:28)
Thanks for breaking that down. I think my last question for you, and you had started to touch on it before a little bit by your example of like parents, you know, calling welfare checks on their other parent or whatever. But I guess, are there any other legal or ethical considerations that a family member should consider before requesting a welfare check?
Matt Sizemore (17:47)
There's the the legal and ethical the ethical is always there. If it's called a welfare check for a reason, not just a go see how they're doing kind of call the ethical reason in my own opinion is always there. And that's kind of the other part of it too is that ethical is very much opinionated. And so what what somebody's deems as ethical may not be what other people deem as ethical. And so the ethical part is there.
the legal part that I would caution people against using the sheriff's office to essentially harass somebody. In most situations, like with what y'all are doing with patient care and stuff, I don't believe that that would happen. But what I would say is, a family member, if y'all have a...
a nurse or a caretaker who's staying with somebody who's actively in the home. And we're getting a phone call two or three times a day for us to go over there from the family to make sure everything's okay when they have a caretaker there. That's probably a conversation that we're going to handle. Talking with the family and being like, look, they have a caretaker there. Everything's fine. If you want.
to go check on them and make sure that the business or whoever that you're paying is doing their job correctly, that's up to you. But we're not gonna do this anymore because it's obvious that this is not productive and that this is going into harassment. And then, like I said before, it's sad because in my opinion, the only victims in the situation are typically the kids.
that are getting used as bargaining chips. But yes, there are times where parents will use us to do welfare checks on their kids when they're with an ex-spouse or a separated spouse, whatever it is. And it could be anything from so-and-so is not letting them call me. And I know they want me to want, it can be a lot of different things. I know it's not really here, what I'm here to get into.
But yeah, it's just using, like I said, common sense techniques is what I use when I get on scene. And it's just using that same sense of, hey, I've called three times today. They're okay. If there's that much of a concern past two or three welfare checks, I would even say in a couple of days, if there's that much concern, then you might wanna start heading that way yourself.
Or you might want to start, you know, having somebody there 24-7 as opposed to set periods of time. And that just that protects yourself and obviously the other person from from any other issues.
Katie Wilkinson (20:20)
Yeah, this has been great, Matt. Thank you so much for everything you've shared. You have a very calm demeanor. think this brings a lot of peace of mind to people that are caring for a loved one from afar. So thank you for your time and sharing firsthand experience of what it looks like to do a welfare check.
Matt Sizemore (20:36)
Yeah. And it's like I said before, well, thank you again. Thank you for having me. But, know, just nothing's ever too small. It's what you know is abnormal behavior for your significant. I say significant other family member, really good friend, whatever, whatever it may be, whatever is abnormal to you is what matters, not what abnormal to me, because I don't know whoever I'm going to talk to.
And so if it's abnormal to you, if it's a concern to you, then it's going to be a concern to us as law enforcement. So never hesitate to call. As I said before, we would much rather.
show up on scene and everything's fine and you kind of feel like, man, I feel bad for calling or what, because you know, everything was fine. We would love to get there and everything would be fine rather than not get called and something be seriously wrong. So.
Katie Wilkinson (21:31)
Thank you so much.
