Home care in Chelmsford and Mid-West Essex

I am Head of Care here at Forest Homecare, with 41 years of experience in the Social Care sector. Working my way up first a night care worker in a small residential home in Wales with the hours fitting in perfectly with my home life and commitments having a young family at the time and as they got older, I was able to change my hours to working evenings and weekends, then onto more sociable hours once they were at secondary school. On moving to the Southeast of England, I used my valuable skills to take up a position with a local home care provider. this was a more office-based role, which included going out into the community to assess new packages, setting up person-centred care plans, completing risk assessments, and investigating safeguarding concerns.

I respond positively to all training opportunities that are offered to me to increase/ update my knowledge base, which I enjoy cascading to others working in this sector as much as time allows. I am a Dementia Champion and active in my local community giving talks and one to one support to those diagnosed with the condition and/or their family member(s), I have provided sessions to local groups, e.g.: scout movement, local WI, promoting the need for more awareness and conversation about the disease. I am also a trained Mental Health First Aider, Dignity Champion, and I have attended many sessions on various subjects to ensure that my knowledge base is always up to date and relevant as things change or progress.  I am also an associate of My Home Life UK, which was an intense 6-month Leadership Support Programme that I found to be very beneficial for my current role.

I am passionate that adults should be able to remain in their own home if that is their wish, with the support and care from those who mean the most to them or from a care company like ours. My particular interest is in assessing needs and supporting people to learn new skills, which they then use to make their or someone else’s life a little bit better. I have worked on several projects that have given me a great sense of achievement, seeing the impact and improvements that came out of them and the lessons learnt along the way, both positive and negative. Taking projects from start to finish requires a comprehensive, detail-oriented mindset, which is fortunately what I specialise in, alongside several certifications obtained over the years.  My passion and drive for successful completion have allowed me to manage projects both small-scale and large-scale within tight deadlines.

When I am away from the office, you can find me enjoying family time, I was the main carer for my husband who had complex needs and I think that this also gave me a greater insight into the pressures and rewards for those who care for someone, also the impact having a formal package of care may have on an entire network of supporters both family/friends, I keep this at the forefront of everything that I do along with following the our companies policies and procedures.  I have been fortunate enough to be part of a community where reaching out to those most vulnerable is always a priority. My mission lies in ensuring rights, promoting fairness, upholding equality, and advocating justice regardless of any circumstance.