Christmas is a magical time for our customers and our carers, and there was plenty of festive cheer to celebrate the wonderful work that our carers do at our Wimbledon branch this year.
Rebecca Terrell (Branch Manager), Jacky Allday (carer) Lauren Durrand (carer) all enjoyed turning the branch into a grotto to delight their carers. Rebecca also treated all of her hardworking carers to a Christmas outing in their local pub, complete with drinks and nibbles, just to say a huge thank you for the work they do to keep our customers independent in their own homes over the festive period. The team enjoyed an outing to deliver Christmas cards and shortbread to their customers to give them a little Christmas cheer too!
Wearing Christmas jumpers, Wimbledon’s hourly carers and managers came together for their team meeting and enjoyed having the opportunity to socialise and get to know each other a little bit better. For Rebecca, it is important that her team bond together so that they can support each other, and it is also a chance to celebrate the hard work that her carers undertake, particularly in the run-up to Christmas, which can sometimes be a difficult period for the families we support.
Fun and enjoyment continued as Team Wimbledon then held a quiz containing a mix of Christmas and general knowledge questions, with the eventual winners being rewarded with a chocolate Father Christmas each. The highlight of the social event was a special reward for a truly gifted Helping Hands carer.
Abhi Ambigaipagan (see right) has been with Helping Hands since October and she clearly demonstrates everything that we stand for as a business.
Rebecca describes Abhi as: “smiley, positive, enthusiastic, and clearly loves what she does,” as well as being renowned for her reliability and desire to go the extra mile for her customers.This means that she has built close relationships with them all; they simply adore having her around.
Abhi makes a point of popping in to the Wimbledon office to stay in touch with the team, even bringing in her puppy on occasions – just another example of how she ensures that she continues to develop her relationships with her team and her customers.
Such dedication and passion for her job resulted in Abhi being awarded the Wimbledon Carer of the Year, and she received a personal letter & signed certificate from Tim Lee our CEO , a selection of Helping Hands goodies, and a bunch of flowers; fantastic gifts in recognition of a wonderful person and carer.
Rebecca constantly connects with people who may benefit from our service or that we may learn from, and Christmas also provided our Wimbledon carers the chance to learn from the Alzheimer’s Society. Having already established a great relationship with a nearby Dementia Hub, Helping Hands’ carers learnt about how music and group activities can play a key role in supporting a person living with dementia as well as finding out more about the Dementia Friends training programme which some of our carers have already attended and benefitted from.
Helping Hands has had some incredible success this year . As a company, we delivered over one million care visits across both our visiting and live-in care services, starting over 1000 new carers and office staff in the process. With both our carers and head office teams all working to ensure our customers have the best possible care, we are already excited about what 2017 has in store for us .
To find out how our dedicated carers can support you and your family, contact our Customer Services team on 02031 316 346, or if you would like to join our ever-expanding network of carers, speak to our Recruitment Team via recruitment@helpinghands.co.uk .
We would like to wish you all the best for 2017 and we are always on hand to help when you need us. Happy New Year!
