Her Story
About Raquel
Raquel Castillo serves as Assistant Area Director at her organization in Irvine, California, where she has worked for two and a half years. With 12 years in the care management and home care field, she focuses on senior care advocacy, performing assessments to develop care plans, arranging home health and hospice services, and assisting with transitions from hospitals to homes. Her prior roles involved similar care management responsibilities across different organizations, emphasizing advocacy for seniors facing challenges such as dementia or Parkinson's and those without family support. Inspired by her early experiences with older adults, Raquel is currently pursuing a social work degree at Saddleback College in Mission Viejo to expand her ability to connect clients with resources. She values a nonjudgmental approach, active listening, and integrity in her work, and she advises patience and openness to learning when entering the field. Raquel attributes her success to approaching each situation with compassion and an open mind while remaining receptive to constructive criticism for professional growth.
Her Interview
Ten minutes with Raquel
01What do you attribute your success to?
I think it's mostly just going in with an open mind and putting myself in their shoes. Because sometimes you're not always going to get the best personalities all the time, and it's just being understanding of you never know what they went through or what they're feeling, so just being compassionate and open-minded has been what I contribute to my success.
02What’s the best career advice you’ve ever received?
I would say it's okay to receive constructive criticism, because otherwise how else are you going to grow? And I feel like that is something I want to be better, so how else am I going to be better unless I'm open to that criticism.
03What advice would you give to young women entering your industry?
Be patient. Patience, I would say, being patient and just eager to learn more. And just learning, I think you go into this industry and you learn a lot even within the clients and their different stories, their different backgrounds. I feel like there's so much education that you even learn from them. So I think it's just going in with an open mind and absorb everything and just be a sponge.
04What are the biggest challenges or opportunities in your field right now?
A lot of it right now has been a lack of care in general. It's hard finding good quality caregivers and just the correct resources. I think that there's a lack of that currently, including affordable resources. On the opportunity side, there's so much, there's a lot of seniors who are needing the care and I think being able to also find those resources for them. There are more resources coming out as well for seniors that maybe weren't here 10 years ago, so I think there's more opportunity growing for them.
05What values are most important to you in your work and personal life?
Big values is I come from a no-judgment perspective. I just don't judge anything, I like to listen, and I think just doing things with integrity. I think it's very important in my personal and in work is making sure that I can do things correctly. So I think those two would be it.
Join Influential Women and start making an impact. Register now.