Homeland power duo: Mother-daughter Director of Nursing and RN charge nurse share a zeal for service

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When residents learn that their nurse at Homeland is the daughter of Homeland Center Director of Nursing Jennifer Tate-DeFreitas, they say to Jennifer, “Your daughter is such a great nurse!”

“One resident will ask me, ‘Did you take Malani out to lunch yet? Make sure you take her out to lunch because she is a really good, hardworking nurse, and she really deserves for you to take her out to lunch,’” Jennifer said. “They’re really rooting for her, which makes me feel good as a parent.”

The team at Homeland Center not only feels like family, but also includes several sets of relatives among the staff including Jennifer Tate-DeFreitas and her daughter Malani Tate-DeFreitas. The mother-daughter duo is dedicated to providing care and ensuring Homeland feels like home for every resident.

Jennifer Tate-DeFreitas joined Homeland in 2002 as an Assistant Director of Nursing. Malani first came to Homeland during high school, working as an activities aide. After graduating from her mom’s alma mater, Hampton University, in 2020 – with her senior year and all its fun abridged by the pandemic – she returned to Homeland to conduct COVID testing.

From that vantage point, watching her mom in action inspired her to go into nursing.

“I feel like everybody always came to my mom,” Malani said. “If something needed to be done, she’d always know how to handle a situation. Just how she kept her calm and composure about it is like she was made for it.”

In college, Malani majored in biology with a concentration in pre-medicine. The pandemic curbed her plans to attend optometry school on a scholarship, and her mother suggested that she consider nursing. Malani found an accelerated program at Widener University and, in December 2023, earned her RN BSN. In February 2024, she became licensed before joining Homeland as a first-floor skilled care charge nurse.

Malani loves everything about her floor including her colleagues, gracious supervisor and residents.

“I love the team aspect and the unity,” she said.

Malani and her mom draw a hard line between their personal and professional relationships. Malani avoids running to her mother with questions, trying to learn from her supervisor and coworkers. Jennifer stays out of her daughter’s way.

“Unless I have to be there, I’m not there,” Jennifer said. “I had to learn that I’m not the mother at work.”

Jennifer has implicit trust in Malani, who works independently and takes every endeavor seriously. Her daughter is “more like me than I think she knows,” enduring the blessing and curse of being a diligent, hard worker.

“Today, the nursing shortage is real, and the load on nurses can be very challenging,” said Jennifer. “For her to be the youngest in an environment such as this and to be a leader — a quiet leader — to me is a great aspect of the person that she is.”

Although nursing wasn’t Malani’s first career choice, she is glad she made the transition.

“I like the care aspect,” she said. “Doctors are in and out of patients’ rooms. They never have that one-on-one with patients. Nurses are speaking with the patient and getting to know them more.”

Malani’s workday doesn’t end with her Homeland shift. Her entrepreneurial, creative spirit shines in multiple enterprises – running a photobooth business for events, making tufted rugs, and designing programs for her family’s business, the legendary Major H. Winfield Funeral Home in Steelton.

Outside of work, Malani is constantly with family and helping with cooking. Every weekend over the summer, there are cookouts and swimming at her grandmother’s house. Before several cousins left for college, the family hosted get-togethers to “try to make some more memories before they leave.”

Within a year, Malani plans to return to school to study and become a nurse practitioner. Homeland is “the best place on earth to work,” but she plans to venture out and explore her career opportunities.

Her mother has no intention of stopping her.

“I don’t want to limit her,” Jennifer said. “I want her to fulfill her dreams. She has a life to live, and I want her to be able to do what’s in her heart.”

Resident Kitty Deaven: Loving life at Homeland

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Is Kitty Deaven enjoying her time at Homeland?

“Oh, yes,” she said. “Yes, yes, yes, yes.”

Kitty loves everything about Homeland, and so do her daughters.

“It’s given us peace of mind not to worry about her,” said her eldest daughter, Judy Deaven, of Susquehanna Township.

Kitty came to Homeland on Memorial Day weekend this year and has settled comfortably into her bright suite overlooking one of Homeland’s picturesque courtyards. The décor is straight from the home she lived in for 74 years, with family photos and ceramics on the built-in shelves, a painting of a country church on the wall, and cow figurines lining the windowsill.

The cows recall Kitty’s time growing up on a farm near the village of Linglestown, in Lower Paxton Township. She was one of six children raised by a loving aunt and uncle and attended a one-room schoolhouse through fifth grade.

At a soda fountain off the Linglestown square, Kitty met Harold Deaven. He helped run the family farm, and his hardworking mother sold homegrown vegetables and homemade cottage cheese in her own downtown Harrisburg produce stand.

Harold was also a music lover who taught himself to play the clarinet, saxophone, and piano. They would go to Hershey Park Ballroom on their dates to see big-name acts such as singer Vaughn Monroe.

“It was so full that you couldn’t dance,” Kitty recalls.

Harold served in the U.S. Army, driving a coal truck in Japan and sending love letters home to Kitty. The two married in 1950 and built a house in Lower Paxton, raising two daughters, Judy and Renee.

In addition to tending the family farm, which included cattle, chickens, and turkeys, Harold worked full-time at the Olmsted Air Force Base. Kitty was active in the PTA and served as a Brownie troop leader.

Harold died in 2014, and Kitty stayed in the home they built until this year. Homeland was always Kitty’s choice for a continuing care community because her beloved uncle had lived here in the 1980s.

Kitty never forgot the attentive care her uncle received, and her daughter, Renee Edgett, said Homeland was the family’s first choice.

“It was always Homeland,” Renee said. “I don’t think there’s been a day that she’s been here that she’s sorry. She doesn’t even ask us what’s going on at home. She likes it here.”

Homeland staff helped the family apply and sort through finances. During a tour, President and CEO Barry Ramper II walked up and introduced himself.

Kitty chose the personal care suite adjacent to where her uncle had lived. After moving in, Kitty learned that her neighbor on the other side was a classmate from that one-room schoolhouse.

At Homeland, Kitty doesn’t miss a beat. She loves the food and the people, stays busy taking craft classes, and attends music sessions played by visiting guitarists and a harpist. Kitty said that the Homeland salon styled her hair so perfectly that she didn’t need a perm.

Kitty has four grandchildren. After a visit, one granddaughter contacted her mom, Judy.

“Don’t worry about Grammy,” Judy texted her mother. “She’s really happy. She’s different than I’ve seen her in the last several years. None of us have to worry about her.”

Homeland Palliative Care Enhances Continuum of Support

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A hallmark of a successful organization is its ability to evolve to meet the needs of its community. For more than 156 years, Homeland Center has structured its programming to meet the needs of its patients and their families. In 2022, Homeland started offering palliative care, a new and valuable outreach service, to provide a greater continuum of care for its patients. The addition of palliative care services helps patients with a serious illness have a better quality of life.

Palliative care may be appropriate if a patient suffers from pain, stress or other symptoms due to a serious illness. These diseases may include cancer, chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD), congestive heart failure (CHF), liver disease, kidney disease, Parkinson’s, amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS), dementia, stroke, HIV/Aids and other serious illnesses. Palliative care is based on the needs of the patient, not on a specific diagnosis, and can be provided along with curative treatment.

The goal of palliative care is to reduce and eliminate symptoms such as pain, fatigue, depression, anxiety, difficulty sleeping, shortness of breath, constipation, nausea, vomiting and loss of appetite.

“Offering palliative care services is another critical line of support we can offer patients,” says Dr. David Wenner, Assistant Medical Director for Homeland Hospice. “This form of care often helps patients avoid emergency room visits due to uncontrolled symptoms and other issues related to the disease.”

Similar to Homeland’s other at-home services, palliative care can be administered any place a patient calls home. The convenience and comfort of receiving care at home has driven the demand for the creation of a palliative care program.

“For patients who are homebound because of a serious illness, this service brings them comfort,” says Hadiza Fox, a registered nurse practitioner at Homeland. “We provide our patients the highest quality of care in their personal space.”

“Each patient is unique and requires a personalized approach to care,” Dora Butler, a registered nurse practitioner at Homeland, adds. “The Homeland team works together, along with a patient’s other health care providers, to ensure that care is consistent, compassionate and individualized.”

In their roles with Homeland, Hadiza and Dora help patients with palliative care support. They work with each patient to provide a comprehensive evaluation of the patient’s medical condition as well as the needs of the family. They then set goals for the type of care needed to ensure the best quality of life possible.

Hadiza shares an example of when she met with a patient who was homebound and in significant pain. She evaluated the patient’s immediate need for symptom management and contacted the primary physician, pharmacy and insurance company. In one visit, she helped solve the patient’s immediate needs and addressed the ancillary concerns.

“I like to think we are the glue that holds the pieces of care together,” Hadiza says. “It is a privilege to help people when they need it most.”

Palliative care is sometimes mistaken for hospice care; however, they are not the same. Hospice care is provided at the end of life. Palliative care may be provided at any time during a person’s illness and is often offered to patients at the same time they are receiving potentially life-prolonging or curative treatments. Palliative care does not prevent patients from receiving other healthcare services, treatments or procedures.

Palliative care also helps patients and families better understand an illness and assists with complex medical decision-making. Central to palliative care is that a patient’s care team fully understands the patient’s goals and values, so they can make the best care choices possible. Homeland’s Palliative Care team consists of board-certified nurse practitioners, a licensed social worker and a physician medical director.

For more information on Homeland’s Palliative Care program or to request a consultation, call (717) 857-7403.