To know Home Instead® Care Professional of the Month Celia Castro is to know this: She always has had a tender heart and is a natural-born caregiver. When she was growing up, Celia at first thought about trying to become a veterinarian. “I loved animals, and I was very shy around people,” Celia explained.
Two family caregiving situations touched Celia in a major way when she was in middle school. At age 12 or 13, Celia babysat for a disabled cousin to help her aunt. Sadly, the cousin passed away five years ago. Then, an adult brother was seriously injured when Celia was a ninth-grader. “As a result,” Celia recalled, “he had to come to our home because he needed help with activities of daily living. I was among the only ones who were still at home, so I always was helping him. I’d do what I could do to help him, and then I’d sit down and watch a movie with him.”
Eventually, her brother’s condition got progressively worse. “I helped him with personal care like bathing, but it was not like a job. He was family, and helping him was a good experience. Sadly, the deterioration had gotten so challenging that he is in a nursing home,” Celia said.
After high school, Celia briefly worked at an assisted living community, but she found it wasn’t what she wanted. Maybe her shyness was still a factor. On a Saturday morning, Celia talked to a friend from California who was working for an in-home care company.
“As we were talking about jobs, I thought about what she was saying. I was thinking, ‘I still do that kind of thing – as a family caregiver – because I take care of folks when I am called.’ That seemed to spark something. Later, I saw Home Instead on Indeed.com, and I applied. I interviewed on a Monday with Recruiting and Retention Coordinator Maegan Coldewey, went through orientation and got my first shift later that week,” said Celia, who joined the award-winning Home Instead franchise owned by Pietro Jordao and Dillon Rice on May 4, 2021.
“It has been a blessing. With this job of one-on-one care, I lost my shyness. I love people, and I love listening to their stories. The communications with the Home Instead staff are uplifting. They treat you like family. Pietro and Dillon are great role models. Maegan and Staffing Coordinator Rebecca Stracener are good communicators. They have reached out and helped me, and I am very blessed to be with them. I also like Home Instead’s flexible hours.”
In June 2022, a year and a month after starting with Home Instead of Victoria, Celia was honored as the franchise’s Care Pro of the Month.
One benefit of working for Home Instead has been the opportunity to learn on the job and receive goal-oriented motivation from the staff and others. “In one assignment, I had a hospice client. I worked alongside the client’s hospice nurse, so I saw everything she did. I liked the way she calmed my client. I told the hospice nurse I loved my job, and she encouraged me to stick with it and set goals. She told me I’d be a great registered nurse if I chose to do that,” Celia said.
Sometime after experience, Celia said, “I enrolled last fall for a semester of study that would eventually take me toward an RN or quite possibly something else in the medical field. For now, I love taking care of people, and that is the favorite part of my Home Instead job. Actually, I don’t see it as a job. My clients are like family. Many times, it feels so comfortable, as if I am just hanging out with them.”
Among Celia’s memorable days, she treated one shift as if it was “a girls day” with the client. “I made it like a spa,” she recalled.
With a quiet dementia client, Celia left a lasting impression. One day on the porch at his house, Celia tried blowing bubbles, and the client responded by trying to pop them. “He eventually went to a nursing home for rehabilitation and then came back home. It’d been a while since I had seen him, but when he saw me again, his face lighted up and he said, ‘Hey, I remember you!’ That warmed my heart so much. Of course, he remembered my face but not my name, but it was still extraordinary,” Celia said.
All Home Instead Care Professionals are screened, trained and insured. For inquiries about employment, please call (361) 433-0330 or apply online. For further information about Home Instead, visit our website.
