West Norfolk carer is an award-winner within months

With just four months experience under her belt, a carer working for a West Norfolk home care company is already an award winner.

Yasmin Lovelock spent years in the hospitality world before deciding to have a complete change of direction and begin working as a carer with Extra Hands, based at the family-run company’s Heacham office.

With four children, the flexibility offered by the company meant she could work around school hours and family commitments, and it’s a move she’s delighted to have made.

“I am really enjoying it, the work is great and everyone has been so welcoming,” she said.

“When the children are older I really want to train to be a paramedic, and this is giving me experience of a caring profession from the start,  and it’s been great,” she said.

It was a nomination from co-worker Tony Lasham that caught the eyes of the judges at Extra Hands, which also has an office in Horsham St Faith, which led to her Going the Extra Mile (GEM) Award.

“After shadowing Yasmin and watching her throughout training, and seeing her with service users I’ve seen a professional side already.

“Yasmin takes on any tasks in such an incredible way already, and I’ve heard a service user saying she was very helpful and polite and she looked forward to seeing her again. It is nice to see a new carer start, and shadow to see them grow in confidence,” he said.

Yasmin moved with her family from Dereham to Walsingham when she was 14-years-old and she has always lived in the area.

Now she and her partner and children live just down the road, “We are moving around various houses in Great Snoring now. It’s a lovely village,” she said.

And Yasmin is not the only family member to have changed careers and gone into caring from something completely unrelated  as her partner Chris has made a very similar move.

“He is now a mental health support worker but he had been working in construction. It was a real change, and something he really wanted to do. We have both changed what we were doing and moved into caring roles,” she said.

She has children aged from two to 14-years-old and when the youngest is at secondary school Yasmin hopes to be embarking on her career as a paramedic with the ambulance service.

“I will be in my 40s by then, but at least I will have had a lot of life experience, and everyone says it’s not old - so I’m looking forward to it,” she said.