It’s a tough job but she loves it | News

Meet 21-year-old Briana Castellanos. She has one tough job — one many of us cannot do. She is a caregiver to seniors.

She likes it so much, in fact, that after only two years on the job she was named the 2026 West Region Caregiver of the Year from Right at Home Oro Valley.

As a caregiver, Castellanos has heard it all and knows how to have a hard conversation. 

“A hard conversation probably has to do with the parents not wanting to have the help that they need because they are so used to doing everything by themselves,” she said. 

It comes to many of us. Our parents age, become elderly and need help, yet they resist. That’s when we want people like Castellanos to come to the rescue. In her two years on the job she has gained some wisdom in how to navigate these particular treacherous waters. 

“The best time to discuss future care is when (parents) are calm and not so anxious, probably before a crisis happens,” she said. “You never want to discuss something when something happens and it’s an emergency. You always want to discuss it before anything happens.”

Her most important bit of advice: Listen.

“Let them voice their concerns and fears on having some help,” she said.

Something Castellanos hears is that the senior does not want a stranger in the house.

“Yes, we are strangers, but we are there to help so we would try to be there to let them have their own independence still,” she said. “We would be there in case they needed us.”

The kind of care Castellanos gives makes it easier for a person to stay home. She describes it as the small things: doing dishes, light cleaning, helping a person shower or dress, even helping clean a person after elimination.

Castellanos came to caregiving in the usual way. She worked at a daycare facility for a time but caregiving is in her family history. She accompanied her grandmother on caregiving runs and it impacted her.

“When I was younger, my grandmother was a caregiver,” she said. “Me and my brother would go to work with her and hang out with her clients and it was really nice to just see them smile … because my grandmother’s helping them. I knew at a young age I wanted to do something like that. … I just knew I wanted to help people and make their lives a little bit easier if I could.”

She even helped care for her 103-year-old great-great-grandfather. These experiences set her up to be the Caregiver of the Year for Right at Home. 

“For me, if I were the client I would want my caregiver to treat me how they would want to be treated,” she said. “I treat all my clients with respect and how I would want my grandparents to be treated.”

Though she loves her job, there are hard parts. The hardest part is not the caregiving; it’s something else entirely.  

“You’re going to think I’m crazy but just the driving around from client to client,” she said. “My car is a 2007 Acura and she’s trying her best to keep up with the Arizona heat. She’s caught on fire, she’s died on the side of the road. That’s honestly the biggest struggle I have.”

The best part?

“Meeting new people,” she said. “The clients, they treat me as if I were their grandchild.”

Yes, she gets a paycheck but Castellanos gets something from her job that many could envy: purpose and satisfaction.

“It’s the best feeling in the whole world to just know that when I walk through their door they’re just going to have a smile on their face and just be grateful that I’m there,” she said. “I get told every day that they’re just so happy that I’m there. Just hearing that I make a difference to them is very heartwarming to me.”