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I'm proud of what we do.
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You want to see children flourish and go into society,
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and we've given them those skills to go and do that.
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And it just makes me happy.
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I'm Micheala,
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I'm the registered manager of a children's residential home.
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So I was a residential childcare worker for 10 years,
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and I love it.
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Absolutely love it.
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I myself went through the,
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social care system, and then I was lucky enough
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to go into a foster family.
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I always wanted to give something back
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because of the positive experience from it.
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And then through a work placement,
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I went into residential care,
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and loved it ever since.
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Didn't look back.
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Residential isn't a nine to five job.
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It can entail shift work.
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We work 365 days of the year.
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There's quite a lot of time away from the job as well.
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So if you've got your own commitments at home,
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whether that be childcare or anything
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regarding your family,
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you get that break.
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We do the day to day normal things,
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we get to take them on holidays, we go on trips,
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we go on weekends away.
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It’s just being able to be around children, having fun
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and that laughter.
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Some days are going to not be like that.
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These children have gone through a lot of trauma.
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They've got a lot of emotions.
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They could have a really bad day.
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But it's knowing that
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when you come back
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that that day will be different the next time.
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But it also shows that consistency
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for the children,
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that you're not there
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because you're paid to be, you’re there because you care
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and you want to make a difference to them.
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Teamwork is important in residential care.
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You're not working alone.
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You're working as part of a team
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to look after the children.
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There's a lot of mandatory training that you can get,
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from the local authority
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to support you in your role.
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Life experience and then daily encounters with the children
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is the best experience,
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and then the training enhances that.
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I do recommend it for a career for other people.
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Not everyone, but definitely I think for myself,
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it allowed me to develop personally and professionally.
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There's a lot of that training which has helped me
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to, I suppose, go up the ladder and become a manager.
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So I went to university, which was funded by, Newport,
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and that was to do my Level 4.
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And then I eventually did
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my Level 5 to become a manager.
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So I've come a long way
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in the 15 years
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all the training that I've accessed to where I am today.