The journey into care - let's hear yours!

When I was 16 years old I made the decision to work in the care sector, starting as a volunteer support worker for a Bristol-based charity.?Fast forward 20 years, I’m still here and proud to say I wake up every day inspired by the people around me who are equally motivated to make the lives of others better.

On a two-decade journey, there have been many opportunities to pause, and reflect on the reasons a person decides to pursue a career in a particular sector – and recently I’ve been thinking a lot about some of the lessons we learn, the people we meet, and why the reason we stay never changes (despite the complexities and common frustrations we share).?

Perhaps a good starting point would be to share my personal story, and how it led me to my current role.?

Roots in Africa

I was born in Zimbabwe, and grew up there as a child before moving to the UK when I was 14 years old.?My sister and I often went to work with our mother, who was (and still to this day) is involved in work that serves others.?We were exposed to true Third World poverty as children which, in hindsight, likely informed our own career choices.

Moving to the UK as a teenager was massively perspective-changing.?There was a whole (accessible!) world of opportunity to follow my dreams and take whichever career trajectory I so chose.?And in the beginning, my dream was to practise Law, and so my study choices were all geared around Humanities and Language subjects.?

It was during the time I wrote my A-Levels I began volunteering as a support worker, and quickly became a full time staff member as the shifts balanced out my night classes at college in Bristol.?What I found was that the residential home in which I was working became a “home from home” very quickly.?The team there had moved from the institutions into this community home and were all a little bit older than me – it felt as though they took me under their wing and became mentors and supporters of my studies.

The relationships I built in that time with the team, but more importantly the people living in the service, became so deep – I needed everyone as much as my contribution was valued by them.?

We were family, at a basic human level.?

What happened next?

Once my A-Levels were done, I was faced with a decision.?What would I study at university??I applied for Law, and in case I didn’t get a place I also applied to train as a journalist.?I got offers for both, but both would lead me to different cities – and something in my gut told me I couldn’t leave the work I was doing behind – I couldn’t leave the people behind.?So I took a totally different direction – the only course I could do with my (inappropriate A-Levels!) was Learning Disability Nursing.?It was also the only specific training I could undertake to learn to communicate better with people and, in my view, make a meaningful contribution to society by caring for people with various health and social care needs.?

In 2007 I began my nurse training at UWE – and it was an incredible feeling to spend 3 years in a small group of students who were so aligned with making people’s lives better.?It was nothing short of inspirational.?I knew I’d found my place in the world – my vocation.?Having left home so young (16), I had to work full time and study full time, so it was always quite a juggle to balance my support worker shifts with my placement shifts – however it meant I was fully immersed in the world of Learning Disabilities and Autism.?

And it never felt like a job.

The pivotal moment

My first job as a qualified nurse was at Winterbourne View.?Now, most people who work in the world of Transforming Care know what happened at Winterbourne.?I worked there for 9 weeks, and was involved in blowing the whistle back in 2010 – and what emerged from this was the Transforming Care Agenda.?At the time, it was incredibly difficult to comprehend what I’d seen, and there were a few moments where I almost left the sector, totally disillusioned with it all.?

Instead, I took a career break to have my daughter.?As she got closer to 2 years old, the pull back to healthcare became too strong to ignore.?Memories starting filtering back in of the time I’d spent as a support worker, and the tangible difference I remember making in others’ lives.?The feeling of walking into a home, be it an individual’s flat or a residential service where every single smile made an impact has always been one of the best things about working in care.?Sometimes, your smile is the only smile people get all day.?Equally, it’s my experience that the people we support want to feel as though you are part of their family, and if I’m being brutally honest, there were times I needed this more than they did.

Designing a future of humanised care

I was proud to have trained as a Learning Disability nurse, and took a couple of ward manager roles in general nursing environments to fit with being a mum – and it was in this time (by pure chance) I met Trevor Mapondera, the CEO of Catalyst Care Group.?We spent some time together, and he asked me a simple question:

“Why do you do what you do?”?

Followed by “If you could achieve one thing, what would it be?”

“It's simple.”, I replied.?“I’d get inappropriately detained people out of hospital and support them to get the care they need at home.”

There is a reason Trevor has been my coach and mentor for the last 7 years – he believed in this purpose, and we will always work together striving towards the same vision through what we’ve built at Catalyst Care Group.

Following that first conversation, we have worked every single day to build a group of companies that put people first – ahead of everything else, we strive to give humanised care.?And the best part about it is that we know it’s working.

If my days end knowing we made a small dent in the “system” we’ve unintentionally built, through making impact one person at a time and going on a journey with all the people aligned towards the same goal, it would make me a happy girl.?We know that the times we find ourselves in are difficult.?Life is hard, inherently, but each of us have a purpose and when you find it, it never feels like work.?

We are all on a journey together, and although I may be biased, I believe what we are doing is the right thing.?

So, having shared my own personal journey, I’m super curious to know more about you.?

I have two questions:

Why did you choose to work in care??

Why do you stay in the care sector?