Customer success story

The following is a nomination made by our Care Manager Chloe for Care Assistant Samantha Willis which led to Sam wining the national Caremark Care Assistant of the Month award.

The customer raised that she was emotionally struggling due to the death of her daughter, and felt she could not manage the arranging of the funeral and lost hope of a life after her daughter passing away. I had a lengthy discussion with the customer surrounding her home and she felt fed up with her home as she was not able to make the changes she would like. She asked about having her room moved into the front so she could see more out of the front window and asked for support to organise her daughter’s funeral.

I took the customer into the front room and she said she would like to have a clear space and a bed in there. I spoke with my directors regarding this along with the customer’s social worker. Our directors had some spare paint and the customer had funds to be able to purchase a new bed from the furniture project along with a new chair & chest of draws, and painting equipment. I then spoke with Sam surrounding my vision and asked for her support during her companionship calls. She was more than willing to help me, so we set out to remove all the items in her room and box them up. Sam then decorated this room to freshen it up, and washed the curtains. Sam then put everything back into this room, with the new bed and chest of draws.

The day came to take the customer into her new room as she had not seen it up until this point. She cried with joy and said she couldn’t believe we had done it for her and this lifted her spirits completely. Sam also gave the whole home a spring clean and she helped to organise some of her drawers and mail. She felt empowered and had her independence promoted throughout.

We then moved onto the funeral arrangements. We worked with the social worker regarding this as a long lost cousin visited the customer and had prearranged a company for the funeral, however the money that was required was not in the customer’s budget, so we spoke with the funeral directors and explained the situation and they reduced some of the bill. We spoke with the appointee and had the bill paid and sat with the funeral directors to go through music and arrangements for the funeral, along with printing a photo of the customer’s daughter and taking her to the shopping centre to purchase a new outfit for it to help keep her spirits up which Sam sorted.

Sam collected a bunch of roses as per the customer’s request to be able to put on the coffin for her. Sam assisted the customer to the funeral and afterwards arranged the delivery of the ashes to be returned to the customer as per her wishes. The customer explained to Sam that she did not have many photos of her daughter but the ones she had she wished she could have them so she could see her, Sam informed me of this and we decided to make her a photo frame with all her photos in for Christmas so she could have something to open on Christmas day along with a Christmas Dinner we had made for her. The customer was overwhelmed with this and was so happy to be able to have this photo frame displayed with pride in her home and this was all thanks to Sam. The customer couldn’t thank us enough for the support she had received from us during this much difficult time she was going through.

The customer now is more receptive of care and has built a fantastic bond with Sam as she was the one who helped with every part of this plan with the customer and continues to look for ways to improve her life, whether that’s taking her out for her first hair cut in 15 years or a simple cooked meal in a cafe. This was a lady that would never let us into her home at the start of our service commencement and now relies on us and specifically Sam’s support. Even during the most difficult times of her life Sam has being there for her.