SKLD housekeeper on a mission to brighten residents’ days

While Jackie Jackson may be celebrating her fifth year anniversary with SKLD, she actually has been a part of the SKLD Whitehall family her whole life. “My mom worked here for 27 years so I really grew up in the building,” says Jackie.

Working as a housekeeper at SKLD Whitehall, Jackie says, “My job is to come in and try to make sure I have a smile on my face. I always try to treat them like family, brighten my residents’ days and keep them in a good mood.”

Smiles go a long way in every role at skilled Whitehall skilled nursing facility

Jackie goes to great lengths to bring her residents joy every day. Jackie says, “I’m that weirdo who goes down the hallway singing and dancing. The residents giggle with me and tell me I made their day!”

During the pandemic, Jackie has made it even more of a mission to make her residents happy. “It makes me feel good knowing that I was able to put a smile on someone’s face. I know if I act a little goofy for five minutes, they are feeling good. Bringing a little light to their day is all I need,” she says.

Making her residents smile infuses positivity into her work-week as does her team. Jackie says, “I love our group of people because we all click and work as a team. It makes coming to work fun.   never get up in the morning dreading work and always try to get here early to do anything anyone asks me to do.”

Deeply connecting with skilled nursing residents 

Jackie finds that she connects to the residents through her pets. She says, “I wanted to be a vet tech and actually started going to school for that initially. I used to bring my dog to see everyone before COVID, but now I talk with them about family pets. I hope to bring my dog in again in the future because it’s joyful for them.”

There was a particular resident who Jackie was able to inspire in a meaningful way by connecting with him on a deep level: 

“Last year we had a male resident who was paralyzed and having a hard time with it. I could tell he was really sad so I would talk to him while cleaning his room. I told him about my cousin who was paralyzed at 16 and how he spent a year at working up his muscles. Now goes to work every day and recently got married. 

He asked for this family member’s number and just from talking to him, it inspired him enough to get out of bed and want to work and get rehab needed.

The whole time he was here, every day I cleaned his room he was excited to see me because we had this connection. I feltI was able to truly inspire him to give it a shot to see where life could bring him. “

One of the most important lessons Jackie has learned from her work is patience. She says,

“I know nothing is easy and every day is different. Just being able to spend time with every resident, go with the flow to make the resident happy is my goal. I hope to continue working to bring smiles to all my residents’ faces every morning.”