Carey Patterson
ALLi Author Member
Location: United Kingdom
Genres: Biography, Health & Fitness, Memoir, Mind Body Spirit, Psychology, Self-Help/Personal Development, General Fiction, Short/Flash Fiction Collection, Women's Fiction
I qualifed in social work over 25 yrs ago in the days when social workers worked generically and area teams visited any client group. I stopped work only a few years ago due to a rare type of muscular dystrophy (more on my website). Now teams are highly specialised because the legal and care demands are so complex. I loved the job and did every scrap of extra training I could lay my hands on, including specialist mental health training, child protection and training to be a social work teacher. I studied and gained an M.A. from Bradford University in social work but I never wanted to be promoted, I just wanted to be the best social worker I could be. I loved the job and would still do it if I was fit enough, it's both rewarding and challenging. I hope that comes over in my books. I think compassion defined my attitude to social work. I've had hard times myself, some of this I've written about in my books. I could always understand how bad it felt to have the social workers round, and how humiliating and degrading it felt. That's a great attitude to have when you work with people in distress.
Carey Patterson's books
Genres: Commercial Fiction, Contemporary Fiction, General Fiction
Formats: E-Book
Age Groups: 18+
Warning: contains details of abuse There was never any respite from my parent's constant bickering. Money for the electricity meter was sporadic, soap and toothpaste were occasional luxuries, family food was withheld until my father had been given what he saw as his right, the most private of intimate relationships with his wife. Nothing was as it should be. I didn’t know that then, I thought my home life was normal because it was to me. The older I got and the more I saw other people's warm and friendly families the harder it was to live with. I needed to escape from that house. I desperately needed some healthy company. I began to look for a way out. I thought my luck had changed when I met someone who offered not just safety, but prosperity and love forever. I had been cloistered away from the outside world and had...
Genres: Contemporary Fiction, General Fiction, Women's Fiction
Formats: E-Book, Paperback
Age Groups: 18+
Carey Patterson, newly qualified Social Worker, is asked to see a young woman and her baby in a local police station. Kirsty and her baby son have bruises and there is no clear explanation as to how they got there but her partner is known to be violent. Kirsty, is clearly very distressed and is getting too close to the edge of a balcony with a steep drop at the side and putting both her and her child at risk. Kirsty is very distressed and seems unable to keep the baby safe. It being 1982, a Place of Safety order is needed to take the child away without the parent’s consent. Another social worker is finding a magistrate to make the order and Caz is with a police woman trying to help Kirsty be reasonable. Yet Carey realises that she is dealing with not just one child, but two. She...