“My journey’s not been a straight line,” Fiona says with a laugh. “I’ve worked in bakeries, chip shops, cleaning, you name it, I’ve done it.”

After college, she took what she thought would be a short-term job at Safeway supermarket. “It was just meant to be a stopgap,” she says. “But twenty years later, I was still there.”

Fiona had climbed from checkout assistant to senior manager, running departments and leading busy teams. But over time, something changed. “I’ll be honest,” she says, “I didn’t like my job anymore. It just wasn’t for me. I wanted to go out there, help people, and do something different with my life.”

When redundancy came just before Covid, it was tough but also a turning point. She sold her house in St Andrews, moved to Arbroath, and started looking for something new.

A few months later, she spotted an advert for Care Visions. “What caught my eye was that you didn’t need child care qualifications; they train you,” Fiona recalls. “I thought I could do that. It felt like the right kind of challenge.”

Three and a half years on, Fiona’s now a supervisor. “Care Visions believed in me,” she smiles. “And I’m so glad they did.”

“It’s not always easy, but it’s worth every second,” Fiona says. “The young people I work with inspire me every day. They try so hard to fit in, to find their place in the world, and that makes me want to be better too.”

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