Cheshire Ireland began providing services to people with disabilities over 60 years ago. Throughout this time the organisation has evolved with the ongoing needs of those they serve, and the changing landscape of health and social care service provision in Ireland.
Geraldyn Jackman is the Quality Partner for Eastern Residential Services, having begun her career with Cheshire Ireland in 1999.
“I love the job that I do, and the people that I work with,” she explains. “I especially love the organisation itself, Cheshire Ireland is a very kind, compassionate and forward-thinking organisation. I work all across the Eastern region — Dublin, Wicklow, Carlow and Kildare — and, certainly, it is a job where no two days are the same. It is a very varied career, with great support from the organisation at all stages for career progression.”
Having achieved two BA’s and a post graduate Masters in Equality & Diversity — all supported by Cheshire Ireland — Geraldyn underlines the multiple routes for career progression.
“I think this kind of work is attractive in that it offers an interesting and varied career, with options for progression all along the way. The wonderful thing for me, as a mother of three children, is that I was able to study and work – and not lose an income at any stage. The work allows me the flexibility to add to my qualifications all of the time. In a nutshell, if you want to progress within Cheshire Ireland, you will progress.”
In 1948, former RAF Group Captain and Victoria Cross recipient Leonard Cheshire took a dying man into his home in Hampshire, England, to support and care for him. Within 18 months, his home had 28 residents with illnesses and disabilities and had become the first ‘Cheshire Home’.
Today there are ‘Cheshire Homes’ around the world in over 50 countries supporting both adults and children. In 1961 Leonard Cheshire set up Ireland’s first Cheshire service in Shillelagh, Co. Wicklow, supported by volunteers, and since then further services have developed around the country.
In tandem with the options for career progression, Geraldyn Jackman notes that Cheshire Ireland offers the added benefit of work that is personally rewarding: “The people that we provide services to just want to live an ordinary life, just the same as all of us — they just need support to do that easily. Right across the entire organisation, the people are at the centre of what we do.”
It is a career with all of the perks common to other sectors, Geraldyn points out — including maternity leave and good pensions.
“There is no disadvantage to working in Cheshire Ireland, you are very well accommodated in your professional life. It is the kind of work where you are trained to be as skilled as you can possibly be with one central ambition — supporting people to live their best possible life.”