Meet Diane

Before working with children, Diane worked in sales, then opened a salon. But she’d always wanted to work with young people and since starting, she’s embraced the challenges and “loved every minute”.

How did you start working in children’s homes?

I started about five years ago, but before that I worked in sales. I opened a salon, I owned a salon. But something I always wanted to do was work with young people, but my life plan hadn’t yet gone down that way. Then I met a friend who worked here and I applied and started, and I’ve never looked back. I’ve loved every minute of it. It was a complete career change for me. Massive, but I love it, absolutely love it.

Tell me about the needs of the children you care for

I think a lot of needs are emotional needs.  That’s a massive one - like boundaries and routines. They’ve often not had that in the past, most young people that come to our service. They need care and someone to speak to them properly, showing them the right path to go down.

I think mostly they need someone that cares, that will listen to them, and someone who’s calm. A lot have come from an upsetting environment in the past.

Tell us a little about the backgrounds of the young people you work with personally.

They’ve sometimes come from gangs. They could have come from violent backgrounds or abusive backgrounds. They’ve come from situations where they’ve been exploited sexually, both girls and boys. We have County Lines now, where young people have been exploited that way, especially younger people, or vulnerable young girls and boys that are used to run drugs and get affiliated into these gangs and can’t get out of them. There’s a lot of different backgrounds they can come to us from.

What does a day in a home for you look like?

We come in every morning and start at half eight. First we’ll do our staff handover. We’ll get the young people up for school, if they’re going to school, college, or ready for work.

A young person we’ve got at the moment is just looking for work. So we get him up, he’ll go into the office, go onto the computer. We’ll help him look for jobs, help him with preparing for interviews. He has to tidy his room too, so it’s just like being at home really. We teach him how to do the washing, cooking. He is developing his independence, so we’ll take him out shopping. He’ll buy his own food. He has to budget his own money, do his own washing. He’s got a girlfriend, so he’ll go out and make his own way there and we pick him up, and he comes back at whatever time he has to be in.

Generally we keep on top of the house. We’ll do jobs round the house, cleaning, paperwork. We do daily observations on the young people. We’ll write down what they’ve eaten, what they done. We make a note of significant discussions, so if they speak to us about anything important, that we feel is a significant conversation, we always write that down because we can always look back on that and see if things have changed. Obviously they’ll have their supper. We’ll finish the paperwork and then we’ll retire and go to bed.

What’s the most challenging part of your job?

The most challenging part I would say is if a young person’s in crisis, if they’re upset, if they’re angry, if they go missing. When they’re in crisis it’s hard not being able to get anything from them, when you’re trying to understand – because a lot of them don’t want to talk about what’s gone on in their lives. They do have therapy but when they’re upset it can be challenging. They can even be violent towards you. but it’s about you keeping calm and letting them know that you really do care. No matter what they do, you care. No matter what they say to you, or how they behave, as long as they know you care – at the end of the day that is all that matters. If you lost your temper you’d escalate it anyway, and also, they don’t deserve that - they’ve come from that and that’s the only way they probably know how to behave at that time because that’s what they’re used to. They’re used to loud environments and people arguing and fighting and stuff, so for them to learn that that’s not what happens – you can express yourself and to try and teach them how to express themselves and regulate themselves. If they see you keep calm, then hopefully at some point down the line they’ll realise that they’ll probably get more out of life not screaming and shouting. It’s hard because that’s been instilled in a lot of young people from an early age, and it is hard if you are being called names. But you just look at them and your heart breaks for them. I’m a calm person anyway - I don’t think you could do this job if you had a short fuse.

What’s the most rewarding part of your job?

There’s loads of rewarding parts. Even just when they’re laughing, when the young people are happy, when you’re having a good conversation, when they get the job they want, when they get good results from school, when they finish school and they’re happy because they didn’t think they’d do it. We’ve had quite a few young people who have gone back to their parents. That’s great, and it’s worked out, and they’ve all learnt how to live together.

Every single day there’s rewarding parts. Just seeing them happy really.

Is there a particular young person’s journey that means a lot to you?                

A young person’s journey I remember was a young boy who came to us from London. He’d been involved in gangs. He’d previously been adopted. His mum and dad were really devastated. They were really caring, but he’d got involved in these gangs and he was just out of control at home. When he initially came to us, we spent most of the time trying to get him off the roof or out the tree, or stopping him from running off. He was even setting fires everywhere. This went on for a couple of months. But we worked with him and after that he just changed. He realised that we were here – because he had originally thought we were against him as well. It was his first time in care, so we were going to start putting boundaries in place – which we did, but we made him realise that they were only there for his own good. We weren’t shouting at him. We weren’t giving him grief. We were just explaining how everything was supposed to be. “This is what you’re supposed to do. That’s right, that’s wrong. You need to be in by this time because of this…” He ended up being amazing. He’s back now with his mum and dad. The mum and dad actually moved back up north because he didn’t want to go back to London. They were really positive as well. He’s found a girlfriend here and we’re still in touch with him.

When he left and went back home, we had done a lot of outreach with him. So twice a week we’d still go and pick him up, take him out, take him back home, and that helps the transition of going back home. That was really good, but he went from really violently getting into a lot of trouble to going fishing and being really calm. So that was a good outcome.

What are you career plans for the future?

I’ve just done my Level 3 Diploma. I’ve just finished that. I would like to do my Level 5, but I would like my own home as well. More supported living really I think when they leave care because that’s another thing that I always think… Children and young people in care they get so looked after (as in a lot of stuff done for them) in the nicest possible way, but when they leave care they need that support, that transition. So that’s something I’d like to eventually do for myself.

What would you like to say to someone watching this who is thinking about working in a children’s home?

Oh do it! I never, ever thought years ago that I’d see myself doing this now at my age. It’s just so rewarding. There’s so many happy times. There’s sad times when children come in, but there’s more funny times - and the laughs you have with these young people and seeing them happy, it’s dead rewarding. So, I’d say do it… all day long.