In care, aftercare and caring for those in care: my successful care journey

Abstract

Coyle and Pinkerton identify gaps in the care leaving system in Northern Ireland regarding social work training and meeting the challenges of transitioning from care. The primary focus of this article is to provide a perspective of care and leaving care which could contribute to social work education and practice in these areas. Framed within a strengths perspective, the article draws on my own care journey from service user to social work student to newly qualified social worker. As a final-year social work student on Placement Learning Opportunity in a children's home which mainly provided long-term care, I reflected on my own care journey and what I thought made it successful. I concluded that a number of resilience-enhancing factors existed both at the personal and environmental levels including my own level of motivation, meaningful roles, positive school experiences and surrogate relationships. I also considered the relevance of my care journey to my qualifying social work training, including the importance of relationships in residential social work, learning responsibility and understanding the reality of independent living. Implications for social work education and practice include use of personal knowledge and engaging with duality, which means recognition of an individual actively combining and integrating lived service user or carer experience and professional training in their social work qualifying training and professional practice. However, this article emphasises that elements of my care journey should not be used as a checklist for current and former “looked after” children as each child's and young person's care journey is lived and experienced in different ways.

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