(upbeat music) - [Speaker] Do you wanna hear a joke?

- Sure.

- What's Beethoven's favorite fruit?

I don't know what.

- [Speaker] A ba, ba, banana.

(dramatic music) Okay.

That's cute.

That's cute.

My name is Jacqueline Quiroz.

I am a social worker.

I work as a care manager for the Area Agency on Aging for Luzeme and Wyoming Counties.

I had a strong connection with my great-grandmother when I was younger.

And I always felt just a closeness with her and always had a soft spot for our older population.

Morning neighbor.

And I somehow just got along better with older folks and I was drawn to work with them.

I feel very comfortable with that population.

(inspiring music) I graduated from Mansfield University.

I received a Bachelor of social work degree.

It's a four year degree.

My interest was just drawn to how can I work with the elderly population.

Okay.

First thing I come in, I check my voice messages.

I may consult with my supervisor to see if there's any new referrals.

We have to type it up into a nice assessment report.

Make recommendations according to what the consumer might need.

And we have contact plans that we do.

We have to be in touch with our consumers and we wanna give them as much as we can.

This woman was a new client of ours and she's needing assistance with her bathing and dressing.

She's also applying for an additional program, so I wanna go check on her, make sure that she's still needing those services.

If anything's changed for her, we might need to add more services.

So we'll go see how she's doing.

All righty.

I feel good to be the person to be able to help her.

We want her to stay in her home as long as possible.

And if it wasn't for our services and our programs and assessing the situation to see where we can help her, she might not get the services that she needs.

(soft music) Well, my role as a care manager is to assess individuals age 60 and over.

Hi Doris, how are you today?

- Good, and how about you?

- I'm good, I'm good.

We'll do an assessment.

We'll make the recommendation for the meals and the medical alert and the personal care services.

- Oh, wow.

- And so, and once everything gets approved and finalized, we can set up services.

We'll have an aid start coming in.

They'll help you with your personal hygiene, your bathing, and maybe even help you with a little meal prep.

What I find most rewarding is seeing that the individual that we provided services to, that they're happy and comfortable and satisfied and they're able to stay in their home for a longer period of time.

Sometimes people come to us and they think they're gonna get kicked out of their home, because they can't take care of themself anymore.

And there's a big fear of going into nursing homes or assisted living.

Nobody wants to end up in that environment.

And when they come to us and we can help them still stay comfortable in their home, and then their response to us is saying, thank you.

Like that's a reward right there.

That you feel you did your job the way you're supposed to do your job.

- Jackie, you're so wonderful.

Thank you for coming.

- Thank you.

Okay, all right.

You have a good day.

- Thank you.

- [Jackie] Okay.

I am motivated just by wanting to help somebody.

And when you hang up that phone and they told you thank you for your time and thank you that you took the time to listen to me, that helps to motivate you.

And you get a good feeling like I must have done something right.

(soft music) The advice I would give to somebody considering this job is that it takes a lot of commitment.

You have to like the population, the people that you're working for.

You have to be caring and empathetic, kind, compassionate, understanding.

You really have to feel that and believe it in order to do a good job.

I love my job, because I love working with the elderly population.

I have a connection with them, I feel.

It does make me happy.

This line of work, the helping hands field, it's what I feel I was made to do.

- Thank you so much, I appreciate that Okay, have a good day.

- [Speaker] Okay.

(soft music)