BEVERLEY Patricia Dinham Spencer is enjoying her “second career” — helping people transition into new vocations as health professionals, and in her spare time, helping to keep young high school athletes safe.

The Wolmer’s Girls’ alumna tells All Woman that success for her is seeing people graduate from her organisation as skilled, knowledgeable, and caring health professionals, and her entire career as a management consultant has been about facilitating vulnerable communities to realise their potential.

“My resilience is rooted in knowing very clearly the purpose of my existence,” the Kingstonian shared.

“Early in my life as a young professional, I developed and conducted a programme with the Canadian International Development Agency to bring leaders from social organisations in the Caribbean to Jamaica for practical skills and entrepreneurial skills that would enable them to train others. It was successful and enabled many people to positively contribute to their country’s development.”

Dinham Spencer has had a multifaceted career, and over the years, through her passion for development and training, has assisted in elevating the standards of the operations of corporate and non-profit organisations in the Caribbean and North America. Her leadership has directed them in the paths of development and strategies which has led to high performance and social transformation.

The founder/chairman of Strategic Management and Training Consultants Limited (SMTC) has over the last five years conceptualised and launched SMTC Career Institute (SMTC-CI). As principal and director, she has dedicated the institute to the training and development of allied health workers to meet Canadian and US demand. SMTC-CI has since become one of the leading allied health institutions privately owned in Jamaica.

With an international cadre of instructors, she has introduced innovative courses such as the patient care technician (PCT) diploma course for people wishing to gain employment in the US or Canada and continue a career path in nursing; the nursing assistant certificate course for those wishing to work as certified nursing assistants (CNA) in the USA; and the fast track patient care certificate course for those already trained but needing to upgrade their skills.

With a bachelor’s in mass communications from Wayne State University, a master’s in industrial management from Clemson University, and a MPhil in theology from The University of the West Indies (UWI), Mona, Dinham Spencer says a typical day for her involves appointments, staff discussions, visits to online classes or clinical labs, and sometimes visits to off-site facilities where students go for further training.

Interestingly, in 2016 Dinham Spencer went to nursing school in Florida and completed a nursing assistant course to become a CNA in Florida.

“I did that in anticipation of opening my own school in Jamaica in 2017 because I wanted to have a first-hand understanding of what it means to be a nursing assistant and work in hospitals, long-term care, and assisted living,” she explained. “I was also exposed to work in a dementia facility.”

She said she’s most proud of the establishment of the PCT diploma course, established with partners Mona Ageing and Wellness Centre, UWI, which is a 12-month nursing assistant/medical technician course that is being offered for the first time in Jamaica. She said she takes pride in seeing the students at work in the clinical labs learning to care for people who are at their most vulnerable.

“On completion of this course our graduates can assume jobs in hospitals, long-term care facilities, clinics, doctor’s offices to do not only basic nursing skills but electrocardiogram (ECG), phlebotomy, and other aspects of technical support in health facilities,” she explained.

“I am most proud of the high quality of customer care and attention to detail that our graduates have demonstrated in their interactions with patients and clients.

“My current motivation is to create greater training opportunities for people wishing to enter the health-care profession,” she said as she listed her proudest moment in June when 24 students from the first cohort graduated.

Dinham Spencer lists the establishment of SMTC Limited in 1989 and the subsequent purchase of their own office building in 1999 as well as sustainability over the last 33 years as her best career achievements to date, and lists Paul Wilson of Creative Craft, who was part of a group of people she trained through the Jamaica Social Investment Fund (JSIF), and Mustard Seed Communities where she did a business plan which allowed them to access significant grant funds, as her most impactful social work. Wilson continues to provide craft skills training to the blind and visually impaired community.

As for SMTC-CI, she sees it as a means by which she can participate in ensuring that the people who will take care of the ageing population when they are ill or in need of care will have the skills and the knowledge and can demonstrate the respect and empathy that every person deserves.

Since 2018 the Jamaica Foundation for Community Development (Health), of which Dinham Spencer is co-founder, has also been helping to keep high school athletes healthy by providing health checks and Cardiopulmonary resuscitation (CPR) training. She sees her greatest contribution to the world as helping to save the lives of many young people with heart disease through the non-profit. Prior to the onset of COVID-19, the foundation assisted over 500 athletes.

In 2000 Dinham Spencer also introduced the Learn to Earn summer skills development programme to JSIF and trained over 100 high school students in computer skills as well as pottery, baking, animal care, craft, and other skills. It was used by JSIF as a best practice model for other social investment organisations in the Caribbean and paved the way for subsequent youth summer programmes funded by JSIF.

Asked how important it is for her to have built the type of career and reputation she has, Dinham Spencer said it is important to build a career that is based on integrity and trust, particularly in a small country like Jamaica.

“Increasingly, women are creating the same kind of ‘old-boy’ type of network that the men have had over the years which kept women locked out of opportunities; however, integrity is the foundation on which we need to build our careers,” she added.

She said the ability to identify potential opportunities and go after them using the solid foundation and training she had in mass communications and management, plus experience, is what sets her apart from others in her field, and her advice for women looking to enter it is to identify a niche area that is of interest that shows potential for growth and then learn everything they can about it and keep on learning.

When she’s not working, this wife, mother, and grandmother — who has performed in three pantomimes, including Queenie’s Daughter with Louise Bennett, and shared the stage with Oliver Samuels in his first pantomime — can be found reading a wide variety of books and periodicals, including Harvard Business Review, The Economist, Time, and following the arts, particularly theatre and music in Jamaica and internationally, which she enjoys with her husband, Howard, retired professor of cardiothoracic surgery and current registrar of the Medical Council of Jamaica, who is her biggest supporter.