Home Instead® Training Coordinator Jackie Washburn smiled broadly when she read a client’s Care Professional of the Month nomination for Barbara Z., who later was selected as the franchise’s January honoree. The client wrote:
“I want to tell you about Barbara Z. She is caring and funny, and goes beyond the call of duty while covering all of the bases. For example, I don’t have any family. So, for Thanksgiving, she brought me flowers, homemade soup, cake and candy. Throughout the warmer months, she brought me cucumbers-turned-into-pickles and tomatoes from her garden. She has prepared her native Polish dish of pierogi for me and more. I would like to nominate her for Care Pro of the Month!”
“How touching!” Jackie said. “Barbara is a very special Care Pro of the Month honoree to kick off our New Year at Itasca. In addition to the client’s nomination for Barbara, our staff can tell you that Barbara is very well-received wherever she goes. She is personable, compassionate and genuinely kind. I look forward to seeing her whenever our paths might cross. She told me that, ‘This is not my work, this is my life!’ ”
Barbara’s Care Pro of the Month honor came one year after she joined owner Kelly Hutchison’s award-winning Home Instead franchise in Itasca, Illinois. Barbara said she had been searching for a job that would involve helping others. “I used to want to be a nurse,” Barbara said, “but then I found Home Instead online, and I just really liked the purpose and goal of the company. They are very professional and seemed like great employers, which they are.”
Her Home Instead position is Barbara’s first professional senior-care job. “Before Home Instead, my work background involved managing my brother’s sporting goods store, where I talked to customers all day,” she said. Barbara also has been involved in caregiving – she is the ultimate family caregiver as the mother of three children. “I also babysat many times in my life and have cared for both the young and the old,” Barbara explained.
Referring to one of her family-caregiving responsibilities, Barbara said: “I took care of my father before he passed away. I made sure he ate, took him to the doctor and reminded him to take his medicine. When he got early-onset dementia, I learned valuable lessons on how to help him without scaring him.”
A “people person,” Barbara has enjoyed her role with Home Instead. “The thing I like most about being a Home Instead Care Professional is the people who I take care of. I always try to treat them as if they were my own family. I love talking to them and keeping them company when they like socialization. I also like helping them be healthier and happier people. I love to show them my Polish culture by bringing them food such as my homemade pierogi, and chicken noodle soup,” Barbara said.
Barbara truly is an interactive Care Pro, and she uses one of her client stories to demonstrate that. “I have so many great stories about my clients. I like sharing an unusual story to describe one day when I came to my client’s home, and we did some amazing yoga poses together. In the middle of doing a pose called Warrior 3, the client and I both fell onto the bed next to us and we were laughing like crazy,” Barbara said.
Barbara loves being a part of the Care Pro team for one of Chicagoland’s outstanding Home Instead franchises, a member of the world’s largest home-care network and the most advanced care platform. Overall, there are more than 100,000 Care Pros across 13 countries, meeting the growing needs of millions of older adults and their families worldwide. For Barbara and her fellow Care Pros, touching lives impacts their souls, whether they are providing physical help such as light housekeeping, meal preparation, medication reminders or personal care or if they are offering emotional support in a companionship role.
Home Instead Care Professionals are screened, trained and insured. For inquiries about employment, please call (847) 690-9825 or apply online. For further information about Home Instead, visit our website at www.homeinstead.com/home-care/usa/il/elk-grove-village/205/
