I began as a Social Care Worker almost 23 years ago following my student placement in a Children’s Residential Centre. I’m not sure I knew what the job entailed when I started out but getting the opportunity to support children and young people through some of their most vulnerable moments, while not without its challenges, was one of the most rewarding roles I have had over the years. Over time, I stepped into the role of Social Care Manager. That experience sparked an interest for me in the development of others, which led me into training and development and more recently into coaching. Coaching feels like coming full circle: it’s where I get to walk alongside others as they discover their own paths forward.

I would have to say my mother has probably had the most influence on my career direction. People instinctively came to her in times of need. Watching her offer a listening ear and presence taught me the true meaning of care long before I ever stepped into a professional role. I think that planted the seed for my path in social care, although it is only with age and experience, I have realised that. Her way of being continues to guide me, especially now as a coach. She showed me that sometimes the most powerful thing we can do is simply be there for someone.

The children and young people I worked with in those early years of my career, their stories have stayed with me and remind me why I do what I do.

I have also had many mentors over the years who encouraged me to go forward for things I may not have considered.

I had worked in social care for 13 years before coming into this role. I had small children at the time and decided I was ready for a change so began looking at the job opportunities within the organisation.   I applied and interviewed for several positions at the time and this is the one I chose.

My role is very varied as a training and development officer. On a day where I am training, it will vary depending on whether the training is online or in person and what training I am delivering as each of the courses I deliver are very different. On the days I am not training, as well as general admin attached to the training, I am a coach on our coaching network so I could have coaching sessions. I am also on our digital team, so I always have a digital project on the go. This involves building elearning programmes, developing animations or making videos.

I deliver around 8 different training programmes. I am a qualified coach and MBTI practitioner and I am on the departments digital team which involves instructional design and development of eLearning programmes, videos and other microlearning assets.

The main challenge is fitting it all in but I do always mange to somehow.

Other challenges can be keeping training relevant to everyone and engaging all learning styles and differing levels of motivation but I enjoy a challenge!

I love coaching and my digital work. I also enjoy getting to meet with and work with lots of people from lots of different people from across the organisation.

I consider myself quite privileged in my role in that it is a nice job. It’s not great when you have people who book on to training and then don’t let you know when they can’t attend and other people miss out on those places. It can also be a challenge that your schedule is done at least 6-9 months in advance with very little wiggle room.

I have worked in the organisation for 23 years now so I think the knowledge I bring to my role from that experience is very important. I also have good communication, facilitation and presentation skills.

To be honest, in secondary school, I thought I was going to be a teacher so at that time social care wasn’t on my radar. We didn’t have CSPE or SPHE when I was in school. I think it was more life experience that influenced my career path.

My primary degree is a BA (Hons) in Applied Social Studies in Social Care. I graduated in 2002. I went on to do my Masters in Child Family and Community Studies in 2008 and graduated in 2010. In 2016 I completed a level 6 QQI in Training Delivery and Evaluation. In 2022, I completed my qualification in Personal, Leadership and Executive Coaching and more recently in 2025, I qualified as an MBTI (Myers Briggs Type Indicator) practitioner.

This is a difficult one to answer as I have had several roles in my 23 years with the organisation and at each point the training/education I was involved in was important for me in that role. At this point in my career and in the orgnaisation, I think my coaching qualification is probably the most important.  During times of change within an organisation, being a trainer and a qualified coach allows me to; support staff so they feel heard through open and honest conversations; help staff understand the change and to help them learn new skills to adapt to the changing environment.

From my years in practice, we had lots of successes with young people that were really rewarding from young people completing exams to getting jobs to going on to having their own families.

In my current role, I have been involved in lots of really rewarding projects. For example, I was involved in the development of training around Violence, Harassment and Aggression which won an award.

I believe I have strong communication skills as well as being empathetic and patient. This helps in being able to explain different concepts clearly but also helps in understanding different learning styles. In my role adaptability is important also. I have good organisational skills, which helps in managing the different training programmes I deliver while juggling this with my development work also.

If I had a choice, I would love to be a stay-at-home mum but as that’s not possible I feel very lucky to have the job I do. While it is busy, I am lucky to have so much variety in my role with lots of opportunities for personal and professional development.

Yes, it does. When I worked in social care I did 25hr shifts. I loved having time off when others were working “normal” hours.   My priorities changed when I had small children so moving to more regular hour suited our lifestyle. There are times, off course, when I need to be flexible and perhaps work longer hours to get projects over the line but when this happens there is always the flexibility from my management to take these hours back at a time that suits me.

I would say go for it! If you are ok getting up and speaking in front of groups and have experience in social care/social work or youth and community work and believe in lifelong learning, this is a great job.

I believe I have strong communication skills as well as being empathetic and patient. This helps in being able to explain different concepts clearly but also helps in understanding different learning styles. In my role adaptability is important also. I have good organisational skills, which helps in managing the different training programmes I deliver while juggling this with my development work also.

As part of my role on our digital team, the next training I will engage in with be camera training so that we have the capacity on our team to do our own filming.

Experience in social care/social work or youth and community work would be useful for this position. Obviously, any experience delivering training or presentations would also be useful.

Training and Development Officer at Tusla