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Elim Village employee. Debra Bickerstaffe
December 20, 2021
Fleetwood

Debra Bickerstaffe, BCCPA Award Nominee

The B.C. Care Providers Association (BCCPA) holds an annual awards event each year to recognize and celebrate the inspiring work of staff working in care settings for older adults. One award given is the Care Provider Award of the Year in Long-term Care. Member care homes from across the province nominate employees who demonstrate an exemplary commitment to quality, compassionate, and excellent care. BCCPA reviews the dozens of candidates and then determines their selection of four nominees. Elim is very proud to share that staff member Debra Bickerstaffe is one of the selected four!

Debra Bickerstaffe is a Registered Care Aide and Administrative Assistant in Elim’s Full Care buildings here at our Fleetwood campus. Deb has worked at Elim for more than 12 years and has both volunteered and offered to lead many initiatives to improve the quality of care for residents. She is an advocate for providing person-centered care to all residents and is passionate about the wellbeing and happiness of older adults. Her inspiring outlook has led her to become a trainer at Elim’s new staff orientation held several times a year.

Debra is incredibly creative and committed. She has been the catalyst for many important initiatives that promote resident wellbeing and staff recognition. For example, she was the creator of “The 3 Must Do’s,” which is an info sheet that indicates the top three most important things to offer Full Care residents when caring for them. She also brought up the idea of “The Elim Umbrella Awards” to our Human Resources department with the purpose of recognizing exemplary staff in each neighbourhood of our Full Care buildings. The Umbrella Awards has since expanded to include all departments throughout the organization. Deb was also the mastermind behind “The Smile Behind the Mask,” where she created buttons with staff profile pictures that were then pinned to the front of staff shirts. This initiative was particularly helpful for residents with dementia who have struggled seeing staff wearing masks throughout the pandemic. This initiative garnered incredible feedback from the staff team, as it also provided a boost to morale during the most difficult months of the pandemic.

Debra has been involved in many other initiatives and is deeply appreciated by her colleagues. We wish her every luck in this awards competition.

To read more about the BCCPA’s annual awards, visit their website.

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