99-Year-Old Client Amazes Care Pro Honoree Donna
If you ask Care Professional of the Month Donna Carlock what she likes best about working for Home Instead® of Clawson, the answer is short and sweet: “The clients.” Donna elaborated: “I like to work with all different kinds of clients, and there is a variety of personalities.”
In particular, one client has amazed Donna.
For her 99th birthday, the sharp-as-a-tack client had quite a request for Donna. “She wanted me to take her to a gardening center and nursery so she could buy a certain variety of a rose bush that she could have planted in her yard,” Donna explained. “She uses a walker, so she hopped on a motorized scooter there and went around looking at what they had on hand. She had a specific rose in mind and got what she wanted.”
Donna added: “She is quite a person. In the past year, she also got a new computer from Best Buy. She knows how to email and play computer games. She wants to keep her mind sharp. She still pays her own bills. She uses her walker and tries to stay mobile. She can go outside for exercise, and we are standby assists. I prepare her meal for lunch and also make her supper meal so she’ll have it available after I have left my shift in the afternoon. She showers by herself with us Care Pros as standby assists. I’ve been with her for almost a year and a half.”
When Donna joined Home Instead on Sept. 18, 2018, she brought a wealth of professional senior-care experience. “For more than a decade, I was a social worker at a nursing home. I was looking online at job sites for home health care positions and found Home Instead. I actually had been aware of Home Instead to a small extent. A few nursing-home patients, who had behavior issues as a result of dementia, needed one-on-one care and were receiving that care from Home Instead workers,” Donna said.
She likes Home Instead’s flexibility of scheduling for its Care Pros. “When I first started with Home Instead, I had three children still at home, so scheduling was important as I balanced my home life as a mother and my work life as a Care Pro. Now all of my children are in college,” said Donna, whose award-winning franchise is owned by Bert and Stephanie Copple.
Among the considerations for achieving Care Pro of the Month status, an employee has shown she has gone above and beyond the call of duty. Empathy and compassion are taken into account for the award, as well as skill and wisdom for dealing with challenging situations. Donna embodies Home Instead’s guiding principles of “Build Trust, Take the Lead and Share Your Heart.” She is someone who is exceptional at her work with any client.
Dominique: ‘It Feels Good to Help Others’
Home Instead® Care Professional of the Month Dominique Hampton hardly has any downtime during her day, but she’s in “the business of staying busy” and manages her time well, sometimes to the minute.
Dominique became a CNA about 20 years ago, and she noted she joined Home Instead of Clawson in August 2017. Bert and Stephanie Copple own the award-winning Home Instead franchise that serves southeast Oakland County. “It feels as if I’ve done the CNA type of work my whole life. It feels good to help people,” said Dominique, who also works at a second job that is unrelated to professional senior care. Additionally, Dominique is an unpaid family caregiver who assists a grandmother and grandfather. A mother of two, Dominique provides special hands-on care of an autistic son.
Dominique feels at home with Home Instead for several reasons, including scheduling flexibility. “Sometimes, night shifts can be the way to go, so there is that option. I feel good about the company because every office staff member – every administrator – is respectful to us as employees. They also always put their clients first,” Dominique said.
Dominique’s memories of Home Instead clients include a client whom Dominique served for 2½ years before the client passed away just before the COVID-19 pandemic enveloped the world in the early months of 2020. “I thought of her as family. As a Care Pro, you build very close relationships and create bonds, and that’s the nature of the job,” Dominique said. She remembered a grocery-shopping trip with a client who began to worry if she brought enough money to cover her shopping. “She was fretting, and that was obvious. I reassured her that everything would be fine no matter what, and it was,” Dominique recalled.
For Dominique 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 staff members said Dominique embodies Home Instead’s guiding principles of “Build Trust, Take the Lead and Share Your Heart.”
The bottom line, Dominique said, is that she’s “very happy with Home Instead.”
Dominique loves being a part of the Care Pro team for the Detroit-area franchise, a member of a network comprised of Home Instead, Inc. and its parent company, Honor. With the world’s largest home-care network and the most advanced care platform, Honor and Home Instead are revolutionizing care for older adults, their families and Care Pros. Combined, the network has more than 100,000 Care Pros across 13 countries, meeting the growing needs of millions of older adults and their families worldwide.
All Home Instead Care Professionals are screened, trained and insured. For inquiries about employment, please call (248) 203-2273 or apply online. For further information about Home Instead, visit our website.
