Kelsie Meads had a few other jobs before she found her true calling in care working at Roseleigh, where she has spent the last three years.
“I felt accomplished at the end of the working day, and I felt I was finally making a difference so that’s when I knew it was the right job for me,” she explains.
“I enjoy looking after people, spending time with them and getting to know them.
“I did homecare for a while before, but I never felt comfortable being in other people’s home and more important not being able to spend enough time with them because you knew you had to go to your next call.”
With some of our residents at Roseleigh living with dementia, Kelsie says it was a little scary at first but only for the briefest of periods.
“It was literally about five or ten minutes, then you take a step back, breath and realise you love these people and want to do your very best for them,” she adds.
Kelsie isn’t the first person working at Roseleigh to compare it to a family.
She explains: “It’s not colleagues or service uses but just people who care about each other and we have one set goal and that’s to make everyone in the whole building happy. That’s it!
“It’s nice to see how the residents react to you and to make them feel at home.”
Kelsie has good advice to give to someone thinking about working in care for the first time.
She says: “Don’t be scared and enjoy the time you have with the residents because it’s precious.”
Kelsie also applies her approach at work to what she does in her personal time.
“I like to travel and socialise and one thing you learn from working with older people is that time goes by very quickly, so I make the most of every day I have,” she explains.
“It really puts life into perspective.”
