Health care providers are expected to be well educated and technically qualified. Providing extraordinary care takes something more—the ability to touch individual patients’ lives with compassion, patience, and real personal connection. Ashley, a LEAP-trained state-tested nursing assistant (STNA), has that extra something.

“I love making sure the residents are well taken care of,” says Ashley, who works the second shift at Normandy Manor, a skilled nursing and rehabilitation facility in Rocky River. “I’m nonstop moving all day.”

Despite the pace of work, she makes time for that all-important personal connection. Just one example: “Some of my patients require total care. They don’t talk much, but I make conversation with them anyway.”

Named Normandy Manor’s employee of the month in January 2012, Ashley worked as a home-health aide before becoming an STNA and joining the staff at Normandy Manor. She told about a married couple she cared for recently. The husband, a retired psychiatrist, frequently told her that he was “so glad you’re here taking care of us,” she said. “He just passed away recently. The last words he said to me were, ‘Oh, honey, I’m so proud of you, and I’m so happy you’re here.’”

Ashley was involved in LEAP’s Job Link program for three years and graduated from James Ford Rhodes High School in June 2010. She then undertook home-health aide training (HHA) at LEAP and after working as an HHA for a time, decided to pursue her STNA certification. Now she’s pondering how to continue working at Normandy Manor and return to school to earn her licensed practical nurse certification.

“Ashley set many goals for herself, and she’s been pursuing them one step at a time,” said LEAP Employment Specialist Nilli Sleibi. “Her goals were to graduate from high school, pursue the health care field, complete her STNA training, get her driver’s license, and obtain employment in the field. She accomplished all these goals in the time she set for herself. She is a determined young woman.”