"In the year 2000 I came to CareVisions. I had been in care most of my life: four homes and three foster homes. Having had bad experiences in every place and left unhappy, it made me and my sibling feel unwanted. It’s not as if we were bad, just none of the places met our needs. Therefore we made no progress.

I didn’t expect to feel settled on the first day as usually it’s awkward and you don’t know what to say. This was different. The staff were so friendly and interested in what I had to say. My home was lovely with beautiful surroundings; that’s what it quickly became — my home.

I didn’t have a lot of trust or confidence and I didn’t think too much of myself. My team would always encourage me and when I just wanted some space they accepted it. It was so much fun, we decided on activities we wanted to do and goals to achieve. When I was feeling down, they had a magic touch. Very slowly we made progress on my weaknesses, my team were very patient with me.

It was time for me to move on and being alone was my biggest ever fear. I had no-one else apart from my team and my friends. It was hard, but I did it. I always liked learning and I had already left school, but didn’t know what I wanted to do; there were so many options. I loved art and drawing and my team helped me to get an interview at Art College. I completed an art and design course but decided I wanted to be a carer and work with adolescents. I am now in the middle of Higher Social Care to get my BA. The only reason I have come this far is because of the encouragement from my team. My confidence has been built and instead of focusing on my past, I now focus on my future. I won’t lie, I had to do some real soul searching and face my problems head on, but I had help on how to overcome these.

I want to make a difference in someone else’s life now, my staff were hero’s who saved me; I want to pay it back by doing that for someone else. Thanks for reading this and thank you to my team who are still a part of my life."

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