About The Founder

Barbara A. Copeland is the founder of Ramsgate Family Care Home.  Barbara graduated from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill with an undergraduate degree in Religious Studies and graduated with honors in May, 2002.  She then was accepted to Emory University to attend Seminary School at Chandlers School of Theology and graduated with an Mdiv. Degree, (Masters of Divinity) in May, 2005.  After graduating seminary school at Emory, Barbara decided to attend Nursing School to become and RN, however, she discovered on a visit back home, that her mother was not doing well and had began to decline in health.  Barbara relocated back home to North Carolina to take care of her mother.  Because her mother could not be left home alone, Barbara found it very difficult, challenging to say the least, to work a full-time job at the hospital (working 12 hours shifts) and be home to take care of her mother. Taking care of her mother was a full time job in itself.  After several months of trying to hold down a full time job and attend to her mothers' care, Barbara decided to open a family care home so that she could still work full-time while taking care of her mother.

Barbara comes from a family history of (third generation) of caregiving. Her grandparents started a family care home in the 1950's and then built a 29-bed facility in 1972.  Barbara said, "it just makes all the sense in the world to open a family care home to take care of my mother, having been raised in the caregiving environment".  Moreover, Barbara has a younger sister who was diagnosed early on with Chronic Schizophrenia who also needed care.  Barbara felt the responsibility to take care of both mother and sister fell in her lap and was not an easy situation to walk away from.  Thus, with long nights of writing policy and procedures for the application process for licensing a family care home, and a year and a half of rewriting and waiting, Ramsgate Family Care Home was born.

Barbara left her job working at the hospital and began to hone her skills as a Family Care Home Administrator, learning all there is to know about running and operating a Family Care Home.  She spent tireless days, nights, weeks and months developing a Policy and Procedures Manual, a Medication Administration Manual, and a Start Up and Operating Manual for Family Care Homes for publication.

Barbara believes to be successful in the healthcare industry, you need to develop and follow Principles of Caring and develop Core Values to follow as your mission in work.  Barbara believes that everyone should have a good quality of life in their senior years.  Therefore, every staff person at Ramsgate is trained to understand the value of our Principles of Caring and are encouraged to be guided by them in all they do for our residents everyday.  Our Principles of Caring can best be described as preserving dignity, nurturing the spirit and celebrating the individuality of all of our residents, this is our mission here at Ramsgate.