A mother of three has been appointed to a top job in an award-winning care organistion.
Tracey Cuthill, 42, has taken on the role of manager of a centre of excellence to look after people with brain injuries.
The Penybryn unit is on the main site of Pendine Park on Summerhill Road on the outskirts of Wrexham.
The £3 million centre opened in 2008 and has been designed to look after 40 younger people who have suffered head injuries or have other neurological disorders like acquired brain injury and conditions like Multiple Sclerosis and Stroke.
As the daughter of two psychiatric nurses, Tracey says she was always destined to enter a caring profession.
She spent four years living in Bermuda while her parents worked in a psychiatric hospital near the capital, Hamilton.
The house where they lived was in a former leper colony but the young Tracey thought nothing of it at the time.
She recalled: “Bermuda was where I went to school first. It was lovely and we spent Christmas on the beach and lots of family members came out to visit us.
We had a really good time.
“The place where we lived wasn’t a leper colony then but there were memorials to the people who had died. But as a child I just took it on board.”
Tracey came to live in the Vale of Clwyd when her mother got a job at the North Wales Hospital, in Denbigh, and she now lives in Cyffylliog, near Ruthin.
Her first job in the care sector was a sign of things to come – though she didn’t realise it at the time.
She got a part time job as a care assistant in the Wynne’s Parc Nursing Home, in the Brookhouse area of Denbigh, which was a residential care home for a number of years.
The arts and crafts house, which is a listed building, has now been lovingly restored by the proprietor of Pendine Park, Mario Kreft, who lives there with his wife, Gill.
Before joining Pendine Park, Tracey worked for the Mental Health Care Group, based in Llangwyfan, near Denbigh, latterly as part of the management team.
Three years ago Tracey and the family had a scare when she was diagnosed with skin cancer.
She said: “I’ve had a couple of operations and had a mole removed from my right leg but I’m okay. It’s in remission now.
“It was diagnosed at the same time as Jade Goody but you have to be positive, you just have to decide what you’re going to do and how you’re going to think otherwise it will completely destroy you.
“I can’t go in the sun now. I used to love holidays abroad but I’ve got to keep completely covered up all the time.”
Tracey is now relishing the challenge of her new role at Penybryn.
She said: “Pendine Park is a progressive, forward-thinking organisation that believes in all the right things.
“Penybryn is a purpose built unit and it is phenomenal. It’s great and the management team really do care about providing high quality care.
“There’s an atmosphere of warmth about the place – it’s fed from the top down that people care.”
Mario Kreft added: “We were delighted to be able to appoint a manager of Tracey’s calibre.
“Allied to her energy and enthusiasm, she has an impressive track record and she will be a valuable addition to our management team.”
