Monica

Monica's path into caregiving started at home. When her father was diagnosed with dementia, the family needed someone who could care for him, and she found in that work a calling she did not know she had been looking for. Over the more than ten years since, she has spent her career as a certified nursing assistant, in hospitals and skilled nursing facilities and now in private homes. She brings the steady, caring presence her colleagues have recognized along the way, and she sees the work as deeply meaningful, the kind of profession that aligns with who she is. Her favorite work is with clients who have dementia, where she has developed a real philosophy of care: rather than pulling a person back into the world they have lost, she steps into theirs. She still remembers a woman whom others had warned her about, anxious, agitated, throwing things, refusing pills and food. Monica watched and listened first, realized the woman was simply frightened and exhausted, and adjusted everything. She walked with her instead of arguing, traded the meals the woman would not eat for chocolate Ensure she would, and modeled small actions like brushing her hair so the woman could follow along. Patience and attention are what she leans on, along with a willingness to meet a person exactly where they are. Off the clock, dancing is her first love and puzzles a close second, the perfect balance, as she likes to say.