Three staff members at award-winning care service provider Extra Hands are showing it is never too late to change careers after clocking up 45 years between them at the company.
Doreen Taylor, Anne Brady and Caroline Simpson have each worked 15 years at Extra Hands, which has offices in Horsham St Faith and Heacham. The company was founded by husband and wife David and Hazel Evans in 1993, and recently received an Outstanding award from the Care Quality Commission.
Extra Hands offers a full range of care from short welfare calls to complex, tailored packages for people in their own home, and was the first care service in Norfolk to provide a wellbeing check-up service.
Doreen worked as a chef at the University of East Anglia before a foot problem meant standing up all day was proving too painful, leading to her deciding on a more mobile career – and from the start, it was clear she had found her calling as a carer.
“When I started I didn’t know if I could do it, but after two days of training they told me I was a natural!”, she said. “You get stuck into the work and before you know it, 15 years have flown by.”
Doreen’s demanding workload means she sees up to 10 people a day on her rounds, but she said the company’s family values make it all worthwhile.
“I don’t know if I would have continued doing this job all this time if I was with another company instead of at Extra Hands,” she said. “Here, you feel valued by the people you go out to visit, and also by the people you work for. As a company, they train you extremely well, and provide great support when you’re doing the job.”
Another person who made a mid-life change to caring is Anne Brady, who had previously worked at a book company and in a tax office before finding her vocation as a carer.
“I think the caring skills were always inside me, but working here has brought them to the surface,” she said. “The job takes a lot of patience, but it’s very rewarding - you get to meet all kinds of people, with different needs and conditions, and you get to know their families too.
“What really helps is that at Extra Hands, the carers are cared for, too. We’re respected in the company and I’ve always found that if ever there has been a problem, I can talk to people.”
Completing the trio is Caroline Simpson, who now works on the admin side of the company, after 10 years as a visiting carer.
“Because I’ve done the job, I understand what carers are talking about. If they come to me with something that needs sorting I can appreciate what they’re saying,” she explained. “This company will bend over backwards to make sure you’re comfortable in what you’re doing, to supply the best service to care users. Whatever users need, even if it’s just calling for a chat because they feel lonely, Extra Hands can deliver it.”
As someone who has the widest range of experience in the company, Caroline is in the best position to sum up life working for Extra Hands – and clearly, she feels she is in the right hands.
“The people who run Extra Hands put their all into everything, for staff and for the care service users,” she said.
“People leave us, but they come back. I know one woman of 50 who went to work in a care home, lasted one hour and came back here in tears because she didn’t like it. The grass isn’t greener anywhere else than it is here.”
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