Care leaver joins team which helped her move out

Alysha Ridley now helps others who are leaving care

A 24 year-old who grew up in care has gone on to work for the same team that helped her when she left the system, because of how positive her experience was.

Alysha Ridley from Shropshire is a care ambassador for the county council's leaving care team.

It supports young adults as they prepare to leave the system and become independent.

"It's not just moving out on your own and learning how to do your bills, it's moving out on your own and understanding how to cope with freedom, how to cope with nobody telling you what to do," she said.

"You might not necessarily know how to change a lightbulb, or what to do if your hot water's not working… you've got to learn it all independently, and all at the same time rather than a general learning of different things that you might do if you stayed at home until you were 25."

Ms Ridley said that the children she works with react positively when they discover she was also in care once.

"You can kind of visibly see the shoulders relax: 'Oh my goodness I'm not going to have to explain what this is, or explain why I feel angry about this decision'," she said.

"I do feel that definitely helps automatically break down a bit of a wall."

The leaving care team provides a multitude of services for people - including help finding somewhere to live, health and wellbeing support, and support with education, learning and work.

"For me growing up, I always struggled with having professionals come and speak to me and say: 'I understand what you're going through', and I knew they were going home to their families at night," said Ms Ridley.

"It is definitely a good connection to have with the young care children because it is that automatic breakdown of unfamiliarity, I guess, that they might have from other professionals who haven't been through that experience."