Exceptional Care Professional: Sarah – a Letter from the Halstead Family

by | Feb 4, 2020 | Australia

We received amazing entries for our Care Professional of the Year contest. Thank you for sharing your stories with us. Our contest committee had a very difficult time choosing from such exceptional entries We congratulate all our Care Professionals – they are all winners!

The Halstead Family from Queensland nominated their exceptional Care Professional, who is our runner-up. 

Sarah has been in our family since March 2019. Having her care for our son William and our daughter Eva has really made a difference to our situation and during this time she has become a very valued part of our family for various reasons. The usual ones exist, she is reliable, caring, mature and when it comes to William, she is compassionate as well. However, there are various reasons that I believe that Sarah has demonstrated that she is exceptional. The following stories I have selected from a collection that I could share.

2019 and has been a particularly hectic year in an always busy family situation. This year our twin sons both joined the Australian Defence Force. This was a proud achievement for our family given we have several serving members and currently three generations serving our country. Sarah understands the importance of this and made the sacrifice to make sure we could share in the journey together; the following example highlights this.

Our oldest twin was due to graduate in August from HMAS Cerberus in Melbourne. We originally planned to take Sarah with us as we thought this would be an amazing experience for her to see both Melbourne and a military parade. We knew that taking William wasn’t an option as he is profoundly disabled and requires routine, short weekends out of routine really unsettle him, plane trips and airports are a nightmare for him. So, we decided that he would stay at home with one of our regular support workers. Sarah booked and paid for her tickets to attend with us. At the last minute the support worker cancelled, we discussed that my husband would not attend (which would have been heartbreaking for him but also for a loss for our son). Sarah talked to me about being able to manage William’s care and insisted Graham attend. She really understood how important this was for our family and I am forever grateful. So, with the support of my sister nearby Sarah forfeited her holiday to Victoria so that our family could share in something that was very special to us and would not be able to be witnessed again.

In addition to this my husband received major surgery on his back this year. Prior to his surgery he was in a great deal of pain and suffering. Sarah would often observe things that needed doing and would do these i.e. lawn mowing, cleaning fish tanks things that weren’t expected of her she would do without question or fuss because she knew this would ease his pain by not attempting to do everything. Her ability to see the big picture and care about our family is a credit to her.

On top of this Sarah has worked in Bundaberg where due to the geography she has very limited support from other au pairs or people she can lean on. Despite this, she manages to maintain William’s routine and provide high quality care. She is very attentive with our son and I have really enjoyed being able to let go and trust that someone is competent, caring and capable when it comes to him.

Thank you to Apex for linking our family with Sarah. It has been a nice opportunity and experience for all our us.

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