Shared Lives South West has welcomed trainee social worker Susan Kelleher to the staff team as a placement as part of her training.
Cornwall Council set up the 80-day placement which continues until the middle of August.
“The SLSW team has been really welcoming,” she said.
“They are so friendly and welcoming and I’m learning so much. I’m looking forward to starting carer assessments and looking at plans for the people who use Shared Lives services.
“Pre covid I know SLSW had other placements for trainee social workers, so it’s good the partnership has started again.”
Susan, who is going down the Masters level route for her training, has a background in legal work, but a change of circumstance saw her retrain in teaching.
She spent time in adult education teaching English as a secondary language and maths.
With her daughter having dyslexia, she went on to support her through her GCSE’s and it spurred Susan to work as a maths teacher in a secondary school.
“My daughter did really well and went on to university and I’m really proud,” said Susan.
“With her growing up, I decided I want to do something different and have a good few years in me yet and decided on social work.
“I worked with a mum with learning disabilities and had heard about Shared Lives when I did research on how to support her. It really sparked an interest for me.”
She made the leap to working in social work in children’s services, but the pandemic got in the way of her moving on with her career.
With life back to normal, Susan is working hard to complete her training and has a further placement in Children’s services for 90 days as part of her two-year course.
In the future Susan would like to get involved with the Nora Fry Centre for Disabilities Studies, based in Bristol, which is a leading national centre of excellence for research and teaching, striving to make a positive difference to the lives of disabled people.
“I’m really passionate about people getting the right support that they deserve,” she said.
We wish Susan all the very best with her course her journey to become a social worker.