Personal Data

Education

Skill Matrix

Employment History

Reference: 

MH was employed in 2011 by my parents, after the retirement of her mother. MH’s mother was my childhood nanny. MH and I have known each other since childhood. She is a quiet, kind, and hardworking individual. She is deeply empathetic and has a wonderful sense of humour. She works with minimal supervision and instruction. I trust MH completely and have happily left her in charge of our home and my pets when I have gone away for a week or longer. 

We have a large double-storey family home which she single-handedly maintained. Apart from general household cleaning MH duties also included window cleaning, laundry and ironing, bed-making, maintaining sliver and brass items in the home, applying woodcare products to antique furniture, washing and hanging of curtains, pet care and feeding. MH also prepares our gardener’s meals and can pass on any instructions to him if I am not at home. In addition to these general household chores, she also cleaned my mother’s psychology practice each morning and prepared a daily tea and refreshment tray for my mother’s patients. She often prepared my mother’s breakfast and would make her a sandwich at lunchtime.  

MH also provided both my parents with home-based care, saving them from facing their terminal illnesses with institutional care or having strangers care for them in our home. In 2013, my father was diagnosed with terminal cancer, MH quietly and efficiently took on any extra care duties that were required in addition to her domestic work. Following my father’s death in 2014, my mother’s health deteriorated which required her to have several orthopedics surgeries (spinal and knee), MH helped my mother with showering and dressing as well as any rehab exercises my mother had been given. In 2021, my mother was diagnosed with a type of motor neuron disease which made speech difficult and increasingly limited my mother’s mobility. MH treated my mother with such kindness and dignity, gently taking on greater responsibility for her care while continuing to maintain our household.

MH has taken a keen interest in furthering her domestic and home-based care skills. She has completed a childcare course and a cleaning course through Vital Life Training. After completing the hospice’s home-based care course, she was invited to attend a palliative care course which was aimed at healthcare professionals rather than lay individuals. She thoroughly enjoyed this. While MH has not been engaged in any childcare within our home, she has taken an active and central role in helping to care for and raise her nieces and nephews. When she is with children, she is kind, fun, and able to set appropriate boundaries. My friends’ children enjoy spending time with her when they visit our home.

MH has been an invaluable asset to our family and a happy presence in our home. If my current circumstances were different, I would be keeping her on as an employee. I strongly recommend MH for any domestic, childcare, or home-based care positions or any other opportunity that might suit her personality or skill set.

Additional Info

• Reference also states that she was a full-time housekeeper, and made the patient breakfast

• MH worked full-time as a live-out helper

• They had three dogs and two cats which MH was comfortable being around.