Joe

About Me

Caring, playful, and diligent person looking to be a positive influence in young peoples lives.

Being an uncle and being told that I'm good with kids gave me that drive and insight to want to work with them. I suppose seeing them develop and realising I'm a part of that development helped me acknowledge I was part of it all - even when hoping that one day I'll have my own. For me, I suppose I aspire to be the person I wish I'd had growing up. I grew up as the youngest of four older brothers in a single mum household, pretty much. Did have a dad, but it never exactly felt like there was security in seeing him consistently. My brothers and I pretty much caught onto this quite clearly, and now that they have kids themselves, it's definitely made us all mindful of being a good father figure, mentor, or parental figure.

Such conditions didn't exactly feel turbulent because it was all that we knew and we did have each other. But aspects such as financial instability, mental health issues starting to show, and addiction within my family definitely made it feel a lot more unpredictable at times. So I 100% know what stability for children can mean at the time and for later life.

I guess because of this, I've never truly felt confident in the area I wanted to go into until now because I haven't had the time to sit and think. I do, however, babysit each of my brother's kids (seven nephews and two nieces) when I can or when asked, lol. Getting reminded every five minutes how different, joyous, and unintentionally rude each one of them can be, hahaha.

The initial interest and feeling of being good within this line of work spurred me on to take a six-month placement within my undergraduate, where I acted as a volunteer youth worker and absolutely loved it. Then after such things, I kind of married the two sentiments together and decided I wanted to take a Master's in Child and Adolescent Mental Wellbeing, in the hope to be a child therapist, if not a fully-fledged one! Such an aspiration also came from my own time of two years in therapy, where I can honestly say it made me a much healthier and validated person.

Whilst I currently undertake the Master's, I really feel it would be vital to find a job where I can make a bit of money that also builds my experience - like the nanny role! I also hope to attend Camp America in the foreseeable future with the same intention in mind - to build experience and have fun doing the thing I'm starting to love! Like I said, it's influenced by a want to be that example figure for other young people down the line - hopefully, the opportunity will come along!