Care Professional of the Year 2023
Every year, we hear stories about our remarkable Care Professionals who are enhancing the lives of ageing adults throughout the Home Instead network.
2023 has presented us with various challenges that we have faced so far, and we have supported our clients through some very difficult times. But 2023 has also provided opportunities where our Care Professionals have been able to demonstrate their creativity, dedication and commitment to their clients and Home Instead and we want to celebrate the wonderful work that our Care Professionals do.
At Home Instead Sheffield and Barnsley, we’ve been thinking about which of our wonderful Care Professionals we would like to nominate for the annual Home Instead Care Professional of the Year awards. This is based on the values we all share and how our Care Professionals share those values with our clients. The commitment and passion our Care Professionals show, in the way that they work with our clients and support each of our offices, is truly helping us expand the world’s capacity to care and change the perception of working in care.
For Home Instead Barnsley, we’ve chosen Care Professional Nick Warren as our Care Professional of the Year 2023.
About Nick
Nick has worked in various care settings throughout his career. In his role prior to Home Instead, he was a Support Worker; supporting people to live safely in their own homes, do their own finances/medication, find education and employment and even helping them furnish their homes. Some elements of this role also involved working with people with mental health concerns and offending behaviour, which speaks to his ability to care with a wide range of complex people with different challenges.
Nick is a quietly reserved but genuine person who works in care simply because of how rewarding he finds it to look after people and make a real difference to their lives. He represents everything we stand for; he encourages his clients to live their lives to the fullest within their capabilities, and the ultimate result of that is that they do. He helps shadowing new Care Professionals to ensure they understand the clients’ needs and he always makes sure Care Professionals feel confident in completing the tasks required
Speaking to Karen, who works very closely with Nick, we can seen how much of a difference he’s made not only to his client, but his fellow Care Pros, too. Karen is a lady in her 50s who joined Home Instead at the beginning of the year. With no prior experience in the care sector, she was quite apprehensive at first, but has since come on leaps and bounds (even being nominated for a Proud of Barnsley Award!). Karen credits much of this to Nick, who helped to guide her and ‘show her the ropes’ in her new role:
“I really enjoy the calls I do with Nick. He’s always very professional, and I can see he takes an interest in every client and always tries to improve their lives wherever possible. He is patient, calm and always has a positive demeanour, supporting and encouraging [his client] DP when he’s lacking in confidence and ability. He listens to him and I’m sure DP feels that his thoughts, feelings and wishes are acknowledged and taken seriously. We have some wonderful and varied discussions, there’s always something to have a laugh about and it’s always an enjoyable call, I feel I’ve learned a lot from his experience in the field.”
– Karen Barnes (Care Pro at Barnsley)
One of Nick’s clients, David P, struggles with his mental health, and Nick has been supporting him with this for 3 years now.
Ever since meeting Nick, David has changed dramatically. When Nick started with him, he was very depressed, neglected his personal care, didn’t go out anywhere and damaged his items in his property. Now, he is the complete opposite. He is maintaining his personal care and showering with the support of Home Instead, as well as independently, too. He respects his home and the items he owns. What’s more, he now goes out twice a week to do shopping and other places he enjoys going to with the support of Nick – the two have even gone out bowling together.
It’s amazing what can change in 3 years for anyone’s life, but for David it really has been incredible to see how far he’s come. Without Nick, we’re not sure this progression could’ve happened. Echoing what we have previously commented, Nick really does represent all that we stand for at Home Instead, changing lives step-by-step, day-by-day, until one day you look back and see just how much you’ve done and how far your clients have come.
“[My Care Pros] all have their own attributes, but Nick has been there right from the beginning. He has got me walking and going out shopping, this is something I wasn’t doing before Nick came along, he encourages me to shower and helps me with all aspects of my daily life. He quite happily takes me to my hospital appointments and arranges delivery of my medication”
– David P, Nick’s client.
In addition to David P, Nick has also done exceptional work with a client called David M.
David lives with memory loss and receives support in his personal care, meal preparation and medication management. However, many Care Pros can find it difficult to gain David’s trust, which can be especially challenging when ensuring supporting with his personal care.
As a male Care Pro, Nick has overcome this ‘barrier’ by taking the ‘slow and steady’ approach. Over the years, Nick has been a real source of strength and support for David, spending quality time to get to know him in order to enable him to feel comfortable with receiving care. As a result, Nick is the only Care Pro that David allows to shower him.
“Nick is brilliant. Out of everybody, he is the one that my dad will converse with the most. He is very professional, my dad gets on really well with him, he’s very trust-worthy which makes my dad feel very comfortable with him. I know he looks forward to Nick coming.
I’ve also noticed that out of all my dad’s carers, Nick is the one who really tried the most to get to know my dad. Rather than just coming in, doing his work and then leaving, Nick goes out of his way to make it personal for my dad. I can see this in the log notes he reads, which sets my mind at ease to know that my dad has had a nice visit that day.
Nick has been coming to my dad for almost 3 years now, which I think is the longest out of everybody. I think this stability and Nick’s ability to make my dad trust him is why he often only ever lets Nick shower him.
One particular thing that Nick did that I will always remember is when he helped my dad with finding funding for his care at Home Instead. My dad used to be a self-funding client, so as a result we weren’t having as much care. As his care needed to be progressed, I began to get a bit worried as I knew he didn’t have many savings to be able to continue with Home Instead. This is where Nick then mentioned to me that we could apply for funding and be able to stay with Home Instead, which I wasn’t aware of before. So, I then applied for funding and now my dad is in a lot better position financially, as well as getting more care – and that’s all because of Nick.
As my dad would say, Nick is just a ‘smashing bloke’!”
– Sarah, David M’s duaghter