Morven’s 100 Voices Story

I had worked for 16 years in a large voluntary organization, in a variety of roles, including being a parenting capacity assessing social worker and a supervising social worker.  I particularly liked being a supervising social worker as working with foster carers offered lots of variety in my day to day working life.

Some foster carers offered their children a long term permanent family to live in and some cared for children when they most needed it, in times of emergency, when their lives were full of chaos, fear and uncertainty.  Each type of carer offered their children love, and lots of it.  They were understanding that some of the children’s early life experiences meant they needed extra support and as a result I was really lucky to observe children flourishing.

However, I took a different path, I was studying (in my spare time) for a masters qualification in play therapy and this was really hard.  Being a supervising social worker meant that I worked long hours and supported families in a wide geographical area and something had to give, so I transferred to a management role, closer to home, to try to finish my studies.  Within six months I realised that my move was not great, the organization was pulling the funding and closing the service, which meant that I had to steer vulnerable families, as well as a staff team through a period of great uncertainty, trying to ensure that all our families were linked into other supports before the service closed.  Personally I was also facing redundancy.

And so I when I saw an advert for a Senior Practitioner post at Scottish Adoption, I thought I’d apply.  The interview itself was stressful; I live in the West so the drive into Leith, getting extremely lost and then not being able to get parked almost made me turn and go home!!  I was absolutely gobsmacked when I got the call that night to offer me the post, I couldn’t believe it.  Scottish Adoption were offering me a job, a really good job, when the organization I had dedicated most of my working life to, were making me redundant.  The team were really welcoming and in the beginning I was given a range of work, which all helped me to learn more about the intricacies and differences between fostering and adoption.

Working throughout covid I was so thankful to be in such a supportive organisation, where when families are struggling we have a good range of supports.  It’s fantastic to be able to call on the expertise of adoptive parent practitioners, our OT, music and art therapists, as well as adult counsellors to offer support that meets the needs of our families.  And here we are expanding into fostering, so that we can hopefully offer more children love and support when they need it, in times of crisis and throughout childhood and beyond.

And yes I still struggle with that drive to Leith and trying to get parked!!!