NCF RISING STARS Pam Casey is Home Manager at The Abbeyfield Society.
CAREER HISTORY I started my career in social care when I left school. I worked in a care home in Nottingham and loved it from the start. I progressed quickly to a senior care worker role but left the sector a couple of years later to set up a family business with my husband. I worked in the business for about 12 years and I'm so glad I did, because it taught me so many skills that have been useful to me in my current role as a Home Manager. After I had my second child, I decided to go back to social care, wanting to fulfil my own ambitions to become a mental health nurse. I registered with a care agency as a care worker before committing to a degree to ensure that this was the path that I wanted to take. I was very fortunate to have had the opportunity to work in numerous different settings such as hospitals, brain injury units, respite centres for people with multiple sclerosis, nursing homes and
residential care homes. I realised very quickly how much I enjoyed working in the care home setting and applied for a care post at a new home near me. I decided not to pursue the nursing degree; instead, I choose to be involved in building up a new dementia unit at the home I was at. My first management role where I lead a team was at a 106-bed home in Coventry; I was the Unit Manager on a dementia suite which had 34 beds. The part I loved the most was developing care workers to seniors and then unit managers. After two years at the home, my role expanded to a Care Manager role and I was overseeing two dementia units at the home. After having been there for three years I decided it was time to see if I had what it took to become a registered manager.
ORGANISATION I now work as a Registered Manager in a care home with 28 beds for older people; we achieved a Good Care Quality Commission (CQC) rating in all areas within the first six months of my post. We are a not-for-profit organisation and our key values are Care, Respect, Honesty and Openness. It’s important to me that residents feel we uphold these values. We try to create a home-from-home and keep residents involved in day-to-day decision making. I've been known to bring wallpaper samples in for them to vote on their favourite – it's about building an environment where they have a say.
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CMM April 2020
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