Meet Cassandra Marsh

While new to the aged care industry, Cassandra Marsh lives and breathes the values of Home Nursing Group; Trust, Respect, Empathy, Accountability and Teamwork. Joining the team at the end of 2018, Cassandra is the Human Resources Administration Assistant in the Armidale Head Office, managing the day-to-day transactions for the HR team including the recruitment, induction, contract preparation and file management. “I also manage our online training system and our subcontractor register. Basically, anything my manager asks me to do!” she laughs.

Her regional roots shine through, despite living in the big smoke for many years. Attending primary school in Nowra, Cassandra’s father’s recruitment with the Royal Australian Navy saw the family move to Sydney for her teenage years, before finally settling in Armidale. After marrying, Cassandra moved back to Sydney where she worked in HR in the finance industry and as an Area Supervisor for the delivery of a community newspaper – all while raising her children. After her husband retired, the couple moved back to Armidale where Cassandra joined the HNG family. “I love the passion my colleagues have for the work that they do; they genuinely care about our clients and work hard to provide them with the best care possible,” she says. “It’s lovely to work in an industry that’s focused on the care and welfare of others. I remember the people my grandparents and now my parents were when they were the age I am now. It makes me happy to know that I work in an industry that makes the life of these amazing people who have raised and guided us, meaningful and dignified.”

Cassandra knows the importance of having the right team around you, having overcome her own challenges in life. “I am legally blind. Whilst I can see, I have about 8 per cent vision and day to day tasks can prove challenging at times,” she says. “HNG is incredibly supportive of my disability. They provide assistance as I require it and understand that I may need to do things differently to full sighted people and some tasks may take me longer to complete. Computers have been a gift for vision impaired people, allowing us to access jobs we wouldn’t have been able to do in the past. My role is predominantly computer based and I’m grateful to HNG for looking past my disabilities and seeing my abilities.”

When she’s not helping to change lives for the better in her day job, Cassandra splits her time between visiting her children and seeing friends, as well as her religious activities. She understands how difficult it can be for people to take the first step towards asking for help, but says early access can make things so much easier in the long run. “Maintaining a sense of independence and control of their lives is very important to older people. They often know they need some help, but are reluctant to ask for it because they don’t want to be a burden or feel that others may then start making all the decisions for them,” she says. “This is not the case. As the client, you are the one making the decisions about your care and the support you get, often in conjunction with family members. Getting a little help with the housework is always a good start, and it gets you into the system rather than trying to access assistance for the first time when things are really desperate.”