Care Professional of the Month

Care Professional of the Month Jean Ringwalt has been soaring since joining Home Instead^® of Boulder, Broomfield and northwest Adams Counties about a year ago. “Soaring” is an appropriate metaphor because Jean previously had enjoyed a successful 10-year career as a corporate pilot and also taught aviation basics to young students in Kenya.

Using a different turn of a phrase, Home Instead Recruitment and Engagement Coordinator Brenda Munro said: “Jean started with a bang at our Home Instead franchise, and she has been successful with each and every client. Jean is dependable, having never missed a shift and having never been late, and she often gets compliments from clients and their family members.”

In addition to praising Jean’s skillful and compassionate work with Home Instead’s clients, Brenda also pointed out Jean’s unique résumé. Brenda said, “I remember thinking, ‘What an interesting background Jean has had! It spans from being a pilot to working with autistic children while using equine therapy to several instructional stints in Africa.”

Care Professional of the Month Tom Lierman has been a great success with Home Instead® of Louisville, Colorado, which isn’t surprising because he already had been a success as a Registered Behavioral Therapist (RBT) while helping autistic children, including his daughter.

Tom formerly worked for a Longmont clinic, which required its employees to have their RBT certification to provide therapy for children who are on the autism spectrum. Tom explained: “I homeschooled my daughter for the first eight years of school. Being an RBT helped me understand my daughter’s challenges to be more successful with homeschooling.”

As his daughter’s full-time family caregiver, Tom worked with many different therapists at Children’s Hospital, including those in the fields of physical, occupational, speech, sensory, eating, social interaction and life skills. By doing so, Tom learned his daughter’s needs and worked on her therapies through the week when she was not receiving professional therapy. “My daughter is 18, is thriving and will graduate high school this year,” Tom said. “She is considered high-functioning autistic. She has worked so hard to develop all of the necessary life skills and lessons that you would not know she’s autistic. I’m so very proud of her!”

Compassion, empathy and skilled caregiving have been a part of Minnesota native Brenda Stifel’s personality since she was old enough to walk and talk. You might say the size of Brenda’s heart rivals that of the legendary Paul Bunyan.

“Growing up,” Brenda explained, “my family was a foster family for special-needs kids. We had as many as three at a time, and it took the entire family to assist with their needs.”

Brenda also was accustomed to family caregiving for the elderly. “Both my grandfather and uncle died of cancer. During their cancer battles, they lived in our family home so the family could assist them with their care needs,” Brenda recalled. And, for a high school job, Brenda worked in the dining room of a retirement home. She said: “I enjoyed being around seniors.”

When Care Professional of the Month Dale Smith took time to reflect on her journey to Home Instead®, she poignantly discussed her late aunt, who had served as a CNA for more than 30 years and was Dale’s closest friend.

“My aunt was a visiting nurse, and she got me into caregiving. She was so compassionate with others and had taken care of hundreds of people over the years. She was among my mother’s younger sisters, and we were close in age. I am so grateful to her. She taught me what to do. It turned out that this line of work felt natural to me,” said Dale, who had previously worked at different non-caregiving jobs, including ones in the corporate business world, until 2012.

That is when she entered professional caregiving as a private-duty live-in caregiver for 4½ years. Dale then worked for a home-care agency as a contractor before she joined Home Instead of Boulder, Broomfield and northwest Adams Counties in December 2019. Dale’s momentous move to caregiving wouldn’t have been possible without her late aunt’s influence.

Recruitment and Engagement Coordinator Brenda Munro is in awe of the highly acclaimed Care Pro, who was selected for the first time in June 2022. Referring to Becky, Brenda said, “I don’t even know what to say about Becky, who has worked for us at Home Instead since 2016 and is the epitome of an amazing Care Pro.”

Brenda added: “Becky truly treats her clients just as if they were her own family members. All of them are so grateful for Becky, as are we in the Home Instead office. She works full time and is always willing to take extra shifts if we have a Care Pro who is out with an illness. Becky goes the extra mile for her clients and is just an outstanding Care Pro.”

Brenda first vocalized her thoughts of Becky’s consistently amazing care in June 2022, when Becky’s first award was announced. Brenda said then: “In my short time with Home Instead, Becky was the first Care Pro I had met in person. Around Christmas 2021, she brought in one of her clients to pick up their gifts. I remember saying to the team, ‘Wow, do all of our Care Pros love their clients as much as Becky does?’ It looked like Becky was with her grandmother because Becky was so doting and loving.”

Care Professional of the Month Maeve Tometra is a miracle worker.

The staff at Home Instead^® of Boulder, Broomfield and northwest Adams Counties is eager to testify to that fact. “Maeve stepped in and literally saved the client. Maeve is humble about it, but we firmly believed she performed a miracle,” Client Care Coordinator Stojanka Mikulic said. Recruitment and Engagement Coordinator Brenda Munro offered: “There’s a big story concerning Maeve, a really big one.”

Stojanka explained: “The client, a bachelor who lived alone, had undergone a massive weight loss and was seldom eating or drinking because he did not have an appetite or thirst. He had all kinds of medical issues, including dehydration. Maeve is an amazing Care Pro who knows so much about all aspects of caregiving because she has been a nurse for a number of years. She really helped him when no one else could. Maeve put in overtime to make sure the client was improving and had a clean environment. The client was saying, ‘Somebody please help me.’ Maeve has a sweetheart for a client.”

It has been 2½ years since Alise Trujillo was first selected in March 2021 as a Care Professional of the Month at owner Michael Lammers’ award-winning Home Instead^® franchise of Boulder, Broomfield and northwest Adams Counties based in Louisville, Colorado. Now she is a two-time honoree.

In some ways, not much has changed for Alise, who was selected as the office’s Care Pro of the Month for September 2023. Alise’s consistent, compassionate and highly skilled work hasn’t deviated one inch from her firmly dedicated trajectory that began in March 2020 when she joined Home Instead. But in other ways, Alise’s life has undergone a major transformation.

“In January 2022,” Alise said, “I started dating a man named Sergio who I later found out was perfect for me in every facet. He has been deployed since December 2022, and he will be home in October 2023! I just couldn’t be happier to be reunited with the love of my life. It has been a very long 10 months without him by my side, especially enduring the sadness of our profession.”

Claire DeVitto’s journey to the Home Instead^® franchise of Boulder, Broomfield and northwest Adams Counties began thousands of miles away and more than 20 years ago. The Home Instead Care Professional of the Month enrolled for a nursing program in 2002 after taking care of her mother-in-law who had pancreatic cancer in 2000. “My mother-in-law encouraged me to pursue my dream of earning my nurse’s diploma and leave my 25-year computer programming career behind,” the United Kingdom native explained.

“I had started nurse training when I left school in South Africa but did not complete it, so it was something to which I had always wanted to return. I qualified for nurse training again in 2005 and completed my Bachelor of Science in Nursing (BSN) in 2007 in England. I worked in women’s health and moved into orthopedic outpatients until I retired in 2016,” Claire said.

“Caring for patients was always something I enjoyed. As a fulltime working mother of three, I have always kept busy. My children now live in Canada, New Zealand and here. With six grandchildren among them, I love to travel to see them regularly. I also love to visit my mum in the United Kingdom. She lives near my sister.”

Long before Care Professional of the Month Jan Cathey joined Home Instead^® of Boulder, Broomfield and northwest Adams Counties, Jan already had successfully handled the challenges of three difficult home-care situations after taking the initiative as an unpaid caregiver. “I never previously worked as a professional caregiver before I joined Home Instead,” the New Mexico native said, “but I have a lot of hands-on experience.”

In Jan’s first challenge, her next-door neighbor was diagnosed with cancer and was bedfast for more than six months before she passed away. The neighbor’s 75-year-old husband was her primary caregiver, and Jan helped him. More than just neighbors, the couple were Jan’s good friends. “Besides taking lots of food over at least three days a week,” Jan recalled, “I would tell the husband to take a break for the day, and I would completely take care of his wife.”

When Home Instead^® Care Professional of the Month MaryLee Vice was nearing her 12^th birthday, her mother asked MaryLee what she wanted for a gift. MaryLee said, “Foster kids.” It was one of the earliest signs in MaryLee’s life that she simply wanted to help others. As a result, MaryLee’s parents moved forward with the idea.

“My parents got their foster-care license and took classes, and we had a lot of extra kids in our home during the following years. I think it was in my DNA to want a large family, and to want to share our love and blessings beyond our immediate fold. Our parents volunteered in the Boulder and Lafayette communities, and their generosity benefited others beyond our house,” recalled MaryLee, who, as an adult, gained senior-care experience in nursing homes, assisted living and home-health care as a licensed CNA, and with agency placement of patients and clients.

For the record, Lynette was honored as Care Professional of the Month in April 2007, June 2013, June 2016 and now May 2023. In previous years, Lynette reminisced about a drastic career change more than 18 years ago, when she joined Home Instead of Boulder, Broomfield and northwest Adams Counties.

“I was going through the motions of a full-time office job, feeling more overwhelmed than fulfilled. After 23 years with the company, I was sitting at a desk and making a lot of decisions but not making a lot of difference. I heard a social-change speech about working at a mundane job and afraid to make a change. I felt a calling, stronger than myself, to make a meaningful change. It is powerful when you feel something that strong churning up inside,” said Lynette, a former health-insurance manager who spent 34 years in the industry before joining Home Instead in May 2005. 

“The feeling was intense when I made the decision to leave my ‘forever’ job and go into full-time caregiving. When I announced at an office staff meeting I was leaving for senior care, I got a lot of stares and disbelief. I emphasized I wanted to feel like I was making a difference and doing something with a glad heart. 

After six months with Home Instead, Holly became a part-time family caregiver for her grandmother, who has dementia. “By applying the experience of working with my Home Instead clients,” Holly said, “I felt confident in my redirecting skills and how to fulfill my grandmother’s quality of life needs. It also made me understand why these families sometimes need respite, since caring for your family takes a lot of patience. I am grateful I have gotten to experience this head-on in my life and I want to utilize all of these experiences to make me a better caregiver and granddaughter.” 

Holly added: “My favorite aspect of my job is simply getting to know my clients. I love hearing about their backgrounds and all the life they have gotten to live. It’s incredible how much their stories and life experiences have taught me and given me lifelong skills I may have never learned without their input.”