This profession chose me,” says Angela Cooper. “The Universe answered my prayer and led me to Dr. Susan Smith McKinney Nursing & Rehabilitation Center in Crown Heights, one of four NYCHHC long-term facilities,” adds Cooper.
Ms. Cooper is an assistant director of hospitals and has worked at this “five-star facility” for 16 years. “We have one centenarian among our elderly residents,” she says.
“I was determined to be an indirect instrument for change in the healthcare industry wanting to ensure the elderly have a voice and young people have an ear,” she says of her motivations.
Ms. Cooper began her tenure at DSSM as a service aide in the Food and Nutrition Department. Under the mentorship and directorship of Jean Leon and Ruth Ogieste her growth in healthcare began.
She was the first to be promoted in the facility. From coordinating in the nursing department, she oversees the marketing and mail room departments and the beauty parlor and she is director of Volunteer Services and Public Affairs.
Ms. Cooper displays considerable empathy and enthusiasm for youth while she supervises the work / study Board of Education GED program at the facility. Ms. Cooper also plans many annual events for residents.
She is involved with the Tobago Progressive Association, the Trinidad and Tobago Alliance, and many other civic organizations and helps organize events for community-based Brooklyn organizations.
“Different people have impacted me from the expanded ‘it takes a village to raise a child’ community,” she says. “I learn from everyone, the elderly, disenchanted youth, a stranger, my girlfriends.”
Summing it up she says, “Why I do so much with the community? I love what I do — giving service to others.”
