our story
Grace Family Home Care started as a vision in 2014 by Natalie Berkoff and myself, Stacey Fuhrman, two qualified Registered Nurses who have worked in the home health industry for over 34 out of our 40 combined years of nursing. We both felt that we could make a huge difference in home health care for the community if we owned our own home health agency and ran it the way we performed our duties as a nurse for years, with dignity, compassion and grace.
While working in home health, we both grew tired of big corporate company decisions that did not always have the patients' best interest at heart. We knew there was a better way to provide quality care by treating the patient’s physical, emotional, and spiritual well-being regardless of the financial impact to the company.
In 2015, we stepped out of our comfort zone and took the plunge to buy not one, but two, struggling home health agencies, a skilled and non-skilled agency. A year later we bought 3 more franchises. Little did we know just how big of a project this would be for us, but it's been a true labor of love for the both of us.
We both realized that to truly take care of all of our patients needs, we would need to provide medical and non-medical care to our patients. We wanted however, to provide better services than all other home health agencies provided. We wanted to provide exceptional care and go that extra mile by providing our patients with love, dignity, compassion, and grace.
When we thought about our company name and how we wanted our name to reflect the kind of care that we wanted to show our patients, we thought about the word Grace. "Grace" is the English translation of the Greek χάρις (charis) meaning "that which brings delight, joy, happiness, or good fortune". No other word could describe how we feel about the kind of care we wanted our caregivers to provide to our patients. Our heart fill with pride and joy every time we receive a call, letter, or survey complimenting our agency on the type of care our patient, or their family member, experienced while receiving our services.
We feel that our superior level of caregivers, our integrity and compassion served with Grace is what sets us apart from all the other agencies, giving us a consistent 4.5 to 5/5 star ratings over the last few years. We hope that if you or your loved one is in need of home health care services that you will choose Grace!
Stacey Fuhrman, CEO
Stacey currently is a co-owner and the Director of Operations for Grace Family Home Care and has had a successful career in the field of nursing for the last 26 years.
While in the states, she has worked in the areas of rehabilitation, neonatal intensive care, mother baby, medical surgical, home health and hospice.
While living in Germany, she worked as a school nurse in the DoDD school system, mother baby and medical surgical nurse at the Landstuhl Army Hospital treating the wounded soldiers from Iraq and Afghanistan. It was here that she was awarded Civilian Nurse of the Quarter for the Department of the Army in 2003.
Although all areas of nursing have been very successful and rewarding her passion has been in the areas of hospice and home health. Stacey has served in the hospice and home health role for 20 years starting as a RN case manager, growing into the positions of Branch Director, Director of Professional Services, Administrator and Regional Director of Operations, serving six counties and multiple home health agencies. She has also worked in the local and regional positions for a national private duty home care company.
Stacey earned her associate RN degree in 1995 at Wesley College in Dover, Delaware, and her BSN with honors in 2010 from Chamberlain College of Nursing in Illinois.
Stacey is an Air Force Veteran who has great pride in providing home care services to the Veteran community. She is a wife, mother of two and a proud Mimi to her grand baby girl, Rylee.
Natalie Berkoff, COO
Natalie is currently a co-owner and the Director of Clinical Services for Grace Family Home Care and has been a Registered Nurse for 14 years.
She has held the position of Director and Regional Director positions in both Home Health, and Private Duty services.
Inspiring hands-on leadership, coupled with skilled nurse clinical mentoring, provides for a successful combination. This was demonstrated through her experience at a prior home health agency where she launched her own CHAPS accredited agency as Director of Nursing/Administrator, including building her own team of clinicians, obtaining Veteran's Administration and managed care contracts, and building her own sales/marketing team.
Later on a larger scale, Natalie was recruited by an agency as their Director of Nursing/branch manager to run the office with a census of approximately 240 patients. Additionally, she was their Compliance Officer and Oasis Trainer for all new employees hired. The Corporate office of this fourth-largest-publicly-traded home care agency recognized her as the leading professional within the company at writing clinical narratives in response to Medicare audits so that they may be paid for the care delivered.
She is an Honors graduate of St. Petersburg College, Class of 2006, where she obtained her AS in Nursing, graduating at the top of her class, Dean's List 27th edition. While Natalie was in college earning her degree, she volunteered as a strong advocate at Bay Area Pregnancy Center, a Christian-based ministry founded to help mothers in need choose life over abortion.
She is a wife and a mother of three boys, and her giant floppy-eared rabbits "Elvis" and "Rambo".