Today is International Women’s Day and to celebrate we thought that we would introduce you to a couple of our own Champions of Compton; Dodie Graves and Stacy Pugh. Two women at the forefront of an organisation that embraces gender equality and one that will, at the end of this month, welcome the arrival of its new female Chief Executive; Claire Marshall.
Spotlight on: Dodie Graves
I manage the Bereavement Service at the hospice, with a team of 25 volunteers and a Children’s Bereavement Counsellor. We support the relatives of patients who have died under the care of the hospice, and of course that can also mean there are children who have experienced the death of a parent or a grandparent who may need our support. Often we will support the parent and the child alongside each other so that the parent is comforted in knowing their child is receiving help to process their grief while they themselves are being supported in their own suffering. We run groups as well as individual sessions and it’s a busy service. This means that my role is to assess the needs of the bereaved person and hopefully to provide appropriate support. As a qualified counsellor I also see clients and work with them in their more complicated grief, as well as supervising the team. The volunteers are carefully selected and trained by me and once they have had initial training they have Continuing Professional Development training sessions every other month. It is an extremely demanding role in terms of juggling so many balls in the air, and sometimes I fear I will drop one or two!
I have had a varied career which has involved social work, teaching and managing a training department before I went into counselling. I studied for my master’s degree in counselling in America and then when I returned to England I studied at Keele University for my counselling supervision qualification and worked in private practice for many years. My father had died when I was nine and I have had other bereavements in my life and realised that so many of the people I was counselling also had struggles with grief that I was drawn to work specifically with bereaved people. So over the years I have been able to use my training as well as my own person experience and understanding of grief to support others.
I have had some of the most rewarding work experiences of my working life here at the hospice. I have worked with wounded people who have shown such amazing courage that really humbles me. And the best thing about my job is working with such a wonderful team of volunteers who are as dedicated and committed to supporting bereaved people as I am. It is a mutually enriching relationship and I have learnt a lot from them.
Spotlight on: Stacy Pugh
I am currently working as the Nurse manager for the lymphoedema clinic at the hospice where there are a team of 8 of us- 5 nurses and 3 admin staff. I have been at the hospice since 2004 after qualifying as a nurse with the University of Wolverhampton. I had always wanted to be a nurse for as long as I can remember, even playing nurses as a very small child! When I left school I had all good intentions of going to college and going straight to university at 17.5 (the minimum age at the time) so I started a level 3 GNVQ in health and social care(as it was then) and then life got in the way, I quit college and got a job so that I could get my own place. Although this meant I had the cash to do the things I wanted to do, it didn’t fulfil my lifelong ambition to be a nurse, so with a full time job (in retail as an assistant manager) with a 3 year old child and another one on the way I embarked on my access to higher education studies aged 22 and attended adult college 2 nights per week. I completed my nurse training in just over the 3 years expected after having another child (my 3rd) at the end of my 2nd year-I have never done anything the easy way!
So after a change of direction and a different path into nursing I am currently in a job which I love, I spent 2 years as a staff nurse on our inpatient unit at the hospice and moved into lymphoedema on a 12 month secondment, this was made permanent the following year and a couple of years later was appointed the Deputy manager post before becoming Nurse manager in January 2010. My job is a mixture of patient care and the day to day running of the lymphoedema clinic, I love both elements of my job but especially the patient contact where I am able to give advice and guidance on managing the condition and hopefully make a difference to people’s lives. This is a very rewarding clinic to work in and we have a great team who all strive to make patients lives’ better.
Spotlight on: Dodie Graves
I manage the Bereavement Service at the hospice, with a team of 25 volunteers and a Children’s Bereavement Counsellor. We support the relatives of patients who have died under the care of the hospice, and of course that can also mean there are children who have experienced the death of a parent or a grandparent who may need our support. Often we will support the parent and the child alongside each other so that the parent is comforted in knowing their child is receiving help to process their grief while they themselves are being supported in their own suffering. We run groups as well as individual sessions and it’s a busy service. This means that my role is to assess the needs of the bereaved person and hopefully to provide appropriate support. As a qualified counsellor I also see clients and work with them in their more complicated grief, as well as supervising the team. The volunteers are carefully selected and trained by me and once they have had initial training they have Continuing Professional Development training sessions every other month. It is an extremely demanding role in terms of juggling so many balls in the air, and sometimes I fear I will drop one or two!
I have had a varied career which has involved social work, teaching and managing a training department before I went into counselling. I studied for my master’s degree in counselling in America and then when I returned to England I studied at Keele University for my counselling supervision qualification and worked in private practice for many years. My father had died when I was nine and I have had other bereavements in my life and realised that so many of the people I was counselling also had struggles with grief that I was drawn to work specifically with bereaved people. So over the years I have been able to use my training as well as my own person experience and understanding of grief to support others.
I have had some of the most rewarding work experiences of my working life here at the hospice. I have worked with wounded people who have shown such amazing courage that really humbles me. And the best thing about my job is working with such a wonderful team of volunteers who are as dedicated and committed to supporting bereaved people as I am. It is a mutually enriching relationship and I have learnt a lot from them.
Spotlight on: Stacy Pugh
I am currently working as the Nurse manager for the lymphoedema clinic at the hospice where there are a team of 8 of us- 5 nurses and 3 admin staff. I have been at the hospice since 2004 after qualifying as a nurse with the University of Wolverhampton. I had always wanted to be a nurse for as long as I can remember, even playing nurses as a very small child! When I left school I had all good intentions of going to college and going straight to university at 17.5 (the minimum age at the time) so I started a level 3 GNVQ in health and social care(as it was then) and then life got in the way, I quit college and got a job so that I could get my own place. Although this meant I had the cash to do the things I wanted to do, it didn’t fulfil my lifelong ambition to be a nurse, so with a full time job (in retail as an assistant manager) with a 3 year old child and another one on the way I embarked on my access to higher education studies aged 22 and attended adult college 2 nights per week. I completed my nurse training in just over the 3 years expected after having another child (my 3rd) at the end of my 2nd year-I have never done anything the easy way!
So after a change of direction and a different path into nursing I am currently in a job which I love, I spent 2 years as a staff nurse on our inpatient unit at the hospice and moved into lymphoedema on a 12 month secondment, this was made permanent the following year and a couple of years later was appointed the Deputy manager post before becoming Nurse manager in January 2010. My job is a mixture of patient care and the day to day running of the lymphoedema clinic, I love both elements of my job but especially the patient contact where I am able to give advice and guidance on managing the condition and hopefully make a difference to people’s lives. This is a very rewarding clinic to work in and we have a great team who all strive to make patients lives’ better.