Debra's nomination letter:
I would like to nominate this nurse for the DAISY Award. She works with the Healthy Beginnings Program helping families at high risk for abuse and neglect. She is very encouraging to the families she serves. Helping them to lessen their risk factors through education, encouragement, and connections to physical and mental health providers. She helps them make needed connections in all areas of life to allow them to move forward. She has had more than one of the families she serves go on to experience further educations, employment and improved/social/economic status due to her encouragement. She gets families in crisis to counseling to allow for a better home life for children and knows all of the connections for housing, food, etc. when needed-she is always ready with appropriate referrals.
Recently there was a man in the program that had fallen on tough times; it caused him great mental stress. She made an appointment for mental health care; brought him to the visit and when he fell short of funds for needed medication she paid for them herself. When talking to me about this nurse, he referred to her as his “guardian angel” and said that he didn’t know where he would be without her. He was on the edge after being a victim of an abusive situation, having his child taken and not knowing where the infant was for weeks. This man hadn’t slept for a long time and was truly on the edge. I agree when he said she saved him, having talked with him myself, I know what kind of shape he was in.
She is a true warrior for each of her children, mothers, or fathers that she works with. She provides support that brings them through their toughest times and gives them hope. She builds on their strengths and helps them to see what many have never see in themselves, that they are OK. She believes in them when the whole world has told them they are failures. She makes sure that they put their children’s cares and needs as a priority and sets examples that they should be proud to follow. I see her work successfully with family after family and know that she makes a big difference in their lives.