My journey from Care Assistant to Researcher

Recent attention has focused on developing social care research and encouraging more social care staff to do research. This has prompted me to set out my journey from care assistant to researcher. I currently work at the University of East Anglia (UEA) as a Research Fellow, but my employment journey started somewhere very different.

After school I completed a BTEC National Diploma in Health and Social Care, following this I quickly found a job in a care home, where I worked full-time as a care assistant. I loved the close connections with residents, the banter, the teamwork with other staff members, and feeling that I had made a positive difference to someone’s day. After a while I was promoted to senior care assistant and supported new care assistants in their roles. When I started my family, I left this role.

I had three children in just over 3.5 years and returned to a different care home as a part-time care assistant at weekends between children. When my youngest child was a year old, I started working as a support worker in very sheltered accommodation (also called extra care housing or assisted living). Care provided here was like domiciliary homecare but took place in one building containing 32 flats. For example, staff would have 30 minutes scheduled in one flat and then 15 or 45 in another, ongoing throughout the shift. I worked regular weekend shifts to fit around my husband’s work so he could be with the children while I was at work. I also covered the odd night shift.

Once my youngest child started full-time school, I felt I was ready for a challenge. So, much to my family and friends’ surprise, I signed myself up for a degree at my local college (Suffolk College in Ipswich, which became a separate university part-way through my degree, now called University of Suffolk). Due to getting Ds in my GSCE English exams, I had to take a short access test to demonstrate my English was good enough to start a degree, which I passed. I then undertook a degree in Psychology and Sociology. This degree was partly chosen as it had no lab time or placement requirements, which would have been difficult for me to attend due to my children. I was the first in my and my husband’s family to go to university and most of my family really did not understand what I was doing or why I wanted to do it. I found I loved learning. I loved trying hard at something academic for the first time in my life. After three years, I graduated with a first-class BSc (Hons)!

Due to being in a low-income family, I was eligible for a £1,000 bursary each year of study. As I was working as a support worker throughout my studies at weekends and my husband worked, I was able to save this, so after the 3-year undergraduate degree I had £3,000 saved. I used this to pay for a 1-year master’s degree at University of Essex in Sociological Research. I was lucky, fees were just over 3,000 for a year then! While I was studying at Essex, I started to think about a PhD, so I applied for two. A funded PhD at UEA, and another at the University of Essex. I was offered both! This felt such a surprise. After much deliberation, I undertook my PhD at UEA, where I have worked ever since as a post-doctoral researcher.

My research focuses on dementia care in care homes and homecare. My background as a care assistant and support worker, a role I stayed in at weekends until I had completed my PhD, makes me a better researcher. Care worker experience informs my research ideas and designs, makes it easier for me to understand the plights of my participants and the issues they face, and helps me build rapport with care staff and people living with dementia.

My route is not the only way into research, there are other degrees (some funded) and opportunities to become research-active social care staff. For example, positions as advisors, collaborators, or partners with researchers on research journeys or schemes like the NIHR’s Local Authority Short Placement Award for Research Collaboration (LA SPARC) for individuals working in local authority settings. My advice to social care staff interested in learning about or getting into research is GO FOR IT!