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.”