An inspirational social care worker who spends her free time scrolling through YouTube cooking videos to bring gastronomic joy to her service users is in the line up for a major national award.

Before arriving in the UK, Yvonne Ohia, who now lives in Barry, worked as a form teacher in Africa guiding and supporting vulnerable teenagers through personal and family struggles.

Since then, she has made a huge impact on her service user’s lives, often going above and beyond to steer them back to full health – even spending long evenings off-duty trawling through YouTube cooking videos to learn how to make British classics including a roast dinner to satisfy their tastebuds.

The 43-year-old, who lives with  husband Damian and three children, has now become the toast of the social care industry with a place in the final of the Wales Care Awards 2025, sponsored by Meddyg Care and organised by care industry champions Care Forum Wales.

The awards pay tribute to the frontline heroes of social care, with all finalists guaranteed to come away with either a gold, silver or bronze prize in recognition of their achievements.

Nominated for the Care Practitioner in Small Group or Supported Living award, sponsored by Cartref Ni, Yvonne will discover her fate at a glittering awards ceremony to be held at Holland House Hotel in Cardiff on Friday, October 17.

Yvonne, who has a son aged 16 and two daughters aged 14 and 11, said: “I’m thrilled and so happy! When I came to the UK in December 2022 and moved to the Vale of Glamorgan from my native Nigeria it was a bit challenging at first as everything was so different from what I was used to in Africa. I learned on the job and had amazing supervisors around me and colleagues who all work as one team.

“I learned a lot in that time and right now I am so happy. I visit people’s houses, mostly the elderly. Many of them have been in hospital and when they get back home, they need support to get back to health. It can be strange for them, and so our job is to settle them down and make them feel comfortable.

“My younger sister is a care assistant, and my brother worked in social care when he came to the UK to study, so I think it runs in the family. We came from a family of five and cared for our elderly grandparents until they passed on.

“They lived with us for a long time, and I think the skills developed from there. I was still a young girl at the time, and I used to love it because I could see how happy they were.

“My granddad had dementia, and I saw how he was trying to cope with everything and that’s really how I got into this. I wanted to be in a position where I could make people happy.

“I’d totally forgotten about the nomination and so to find out about being a finalist I was thrilled! My family are so proud of me.”

Born in Lagos State in Nigeria, Yvonne, who completed her QCF Level 2 in Health and Social Care in 2024 and is now preparing to progress to Level 3, brought a wealth of skills and experience to her role, and quickly became an invaluable asset to the Evoo Team.

Prior to working as a healthcare assistant in Lagos State, she was a form teacher in Imo State, responsible for supporting teenagers through their studies, many of whom were navigating personal struggles and challenges.

“I was given a class to take care of and gradually, you get to know the kids and treat them as you would your own,” she said.

“I worked with teenagers aged from 13 to 17, it was very rewarding as some of them were going through challenges and part of my role was to make them feel safe and send them to further help where it was needed. I did that for three or four years in Imo State before moving to Lagos State.”

According to colleagues, her skills and experience have greatly enhanced the quality of care provided to service users and helped to transform their lives.

One noteworthy example was when Yvonne helped a service user to rebuild her strength following significant weight loss. Yvonne’s freshly prepared and nutritious meals helped the woman to regain her mobility and prevented further hospital admissions.

“Your meals are quite different in the UK from what we eat in Africa,” explained Yvonne

“On my days off I often go on YouTube for recipes and try out new meals for them and learn how to prepare British food. I’m so happy they enjoy them, they’ll say ‘your food is excellent’!’.

“We don’t have roast dinners in Africa and so I had to learn how to do it. My kids now love it! I’ve learned a lot of other recipes including lasagna. I had to look it up and then I realized it’s actually Italian!”

Yvonne, who previously scooped the Form Teacher of the Year award while working in Nigeria, was nominated for the Wales Care Award by Katie Barnfield-Lake, (Evoo Healthcare’s finance and admin officer).

Congratulating Yvonne on reaching the finals, Katie said: “We are so pleased to hear that Yvonne has been shortlisted as a finalist for the Wales Care Awards 2025.

“Yvonne takes tremendous pride in her work resulting in exceptional standards of service delivery. Yvonne has been a huge asset to the company, and we are so glad to see her hard work has paid off and been recognised. Good Luck Yvonne and Huge Congratulations.”

After finding out she was a Care Award Finalist Yvonne has since accepted a Domiciliary Care worker position with All Care (S.Wales ) Ltd whose Responsible Individual Keri Llewellyn said “ I am thrilled that Yvonne has made it to the finals in these prestigious awards.

“During her short time with us she has already demonstrated her compassion and commitment to making a difference to people’s lives”.

Mario Kreft MBE, the Chair of Care Forum Wales, said: “Care Forum Wales has been working tirelessly for more than 30 years to promote the social care sector.

“We established the Wales Care Awards to show our appreciation to the workforce and the wider sector for the remarkable contribution everybody makes, day in day out.

“The event  underlines the importance of the social care sector. It is the glue that binds our communities together, both socially and economically.

“Our mission is to be the voice of social care in Wales to advocate on the sector’s behalf, holding truth to power in order to secure a fair deal to recognise the dedication of our front line heroes and heroines across our nation.

“If you don’t recognise the people who do the caring you will never provide the standards that people need and never recognise the value of the people who need the care in society.

“Every single one of our finalists is a winner and will be presented with a gold, silver or bronze award.”