Speaker: Alicia Hopkins
What is your name? What region of Ohio do you live in?
Alicia Hopkins : So my name is Alicia and I live in the southwest region of Ohio.
Who is the care worker you would like to thank? Why are you grateful for them? How do they help you or others?
Alicia Hopkins : So I want to give a shoutout to Laura and Tabatha. They're some of my favorite caregiver people and um Mr Maurice because he's awesome too. But mainly just I want to thank them just for giving me good quality care and just really encouraging me and being there for me and, you know, really helping me out in the community and supporting uh things that are important to me with advocacy. And um also just, you know, just letting me be me and, you know, not judging me on the hard days, but being there to support me, that's why I want to thank them, you know, I want to thank them for their service for me and to others. That's really important, the work they're doing.
Anything else you would like to share regarding our care workers and other DSPs and your gratitude for them?
Alicia Hopkins : I just wanna say that how important it is to recognize our caregivers that are also people with disabilities, working in the field. And, you know, sometimes that doesn't get recognized enough. But there are a lot of people these days that have a lot going on with their health that's often hidden, you know, from the work they do and, but they still show up and they still do great work. And so, you know, I just wanna say like a shout out to Laura and Tabitha, and kudos for that, you know, coming to work and, you know, still trying hard and still being like the best person you can be when you're doing and you're doing a great job. And, you know, it's hard when you have things that are going on that are impacting your life or have family members that are disabled too sometimes that I think it's important to, you know, recognize that our caregivers are still going, coming to work for us, even though there's challenges in their own lives and that, you know, we just have to be kind and just really have gratitude and be thankful for our caregivers because sometimes there's a lot of caregivers that are dealing with way more than what's going on with work and, you know, the fact that they show up, that's, that's an amazing thing too. So, I'm grateful I just want to say that I'm also grateful that my caregivers wanna be at the table and advocacy. That's something that's truly important to me too.
