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By Larry Stombaugh
For the Clemmons Courier

CLEMMONS — Many individuals are putting their lives on the line every day during these challenging times for the sake of helping others and keeping them safe. One of them is Miranda Barneycastle, resident services director at Cadence at Clemmons, a retirement community located on Peace Haven Road. She is a licensed practicing nurse with 10 years of experience, and she has been in her current role at Cadence for 15 months.

While Barneycastle’s role as a health care provider has always been demanding, the challenges of working with elderly individuals during the pandemic has brought about many new demands and expectations.

“My main responsibility is keeping the residents safe and healthy,” she said. “I am now having to implement many more safety requirements. The corporate office at Cadence has done a great job of providing resources.”

Being creative has become a hallmark of her current situation. “We are trying to keep our residents engaged while social distancing,” she said.  Window visits with family members has been one way to do this, and Barneycastle has also used technology in innovative ways to help her clients stay connected. This has included sending virtual pictures and taking her tablet to doctor’s visits so that family members can do a virtual visit along with their loved ones.

Shane Nixon is the director of community relations at Cadence at Clemmons. Nixon says he is grateful for the work staff has done over the past few months to keep the campus and work environment safe.

“The pandemic has made jobs like we do at Cadence very complicated,” he said. “While rewarding, the stress and the strain and the anxiety all make for a difficult job. While Cadence has corporately done a marvelous job of supporting us here, there is no avoiding the difficulties brought on by COVID-19.  Having Miranda Barneycastle has made a huge and very positive difference. She is excellent at communicating with our staff of caregivers.”

She is on the front lines every day, Nixon continued. 

“COVID-19 has added to our work, and Miranda has helped keep us on task and virus-free.,” he said. “She makes sure that we do things like take daily temperature screenings for our residents multiple times a day, ensuring that we correctly use PPE, and working with the staff to educate us on new policies and procedures.  She really has our residents’ well-being as her primary concern. She makes herself available, seemingly all the time, to answer questions and to make sure that our community is as healthy and strong as it can be.”

There are 40 employees at Cadence at Clemmons, including 30 who are care staff personnel. There are 40 residents living on the campus. Barneycastle has been working tirelessly to keep up with the demands of her supervisory role as well as her role working individually with the residents. When asked how she is taking care of herself, she said she enjoys spending time with her children who are 13 and 14. She enjoys camping as a way to relieve stress, but she has only been able to do this once over the past few months since parks have been closed due to the pandemic. 

The dedication of  Barneycastle and others on the staff at Cadence at Clemmons has resulted in a positive outcome during an unprecedented time. Nixon noted that there are currently no cases of infection among the residents or staff. 

“Miranda has done a great job of implementing the corporate policies necessary to keep our building virus-free in the face of the pandemic,” Nixon said. “Cadence at Clemmons is a special place in part because of people like Miranda Barneycastle. She is as good at her job as anyone I have ever seen. She feels called to be here, and this is where she is supposed to be.”