This sub-ordinate theme brings together the various support networks sought out by participants, including a continuation of contact with previous trainee colleagues, support from within family or personal life, and, for one participant, the use of personal therapy. This is a good illustration of commonality and difference, in that participants shared a need to seek
out support to aid their transition, which was beneficial, but that they found it in different ways.
Maggie spoke of her experiences of personal therapy:
I was doing it more frequently when I first started to manage the transition I guess, but now I have it about once a month...
It is telling that Maggie used this more so when she first became a NQCP to help her manage emotionally, and she goes on to say that she hasn’t had felt this way more recently,
supporting ideas within the previous sub-theme, ‘Feeling overwhelmed at the outset of the transition,’ in that this is experienced at the outset of working as a NQCP:
I’ve not felt oh God I really need to speak to (therapist)... I haven’t for a while.
A number of participants talked about how they were affected by the loss of the network of their training programme, which had been a source of support for them:
…one of the things that I think has not necessarily been particularly helpful is... you have... this cushion of Uni, and then it just gets entirely taken away... (Sian).
Particular participants clearly had an affinity and attachment with their programmes, such as Katherine, who repeatedly discussed her pride in being connected to a particular course, for a number of reasons including that it helped her have ‘faith’ in herself. Katherine wanted to maintain her connection to her training course, and indicated that she had reconnected with it in new ways:
…always having that bond and link with the course is really important to me...
I go to meetings because I’m part of the Clinical Rep[resentative], [and] Supervisor Rep Committee and I always joke... I’m going back home...
This idea of the training programme as a home she can return to is important, and we may conceptualise many of the participants’ experiences of support-seeking during their transition as an attempt to return to networks which provide them with similar feelings of comfort, belonging and understanding.
Participants discussed that they sought support elsewhere following the loss of their training networks, especially in difficult times, and Sian was one such participant who found this from other members of her trainee cohort:
…whenever [I] came [across] difficulties it was like I know there would be a group of people that are likely to be feeling the same way... so other members of my cohort, I’d talk to them and we’d share how we were getting on...
Amit shared a similarly beneficial experience of seeking support from a previous trainee while Katherine also discussed the same strategy more than once in her interview:
…the cohort friends... they knew me inside out... they were part of my journey, they connected with me at... difficult times... they knew what I was going through because they were going through the same...
The importance of connecting with people with a shared experience appears to have given these participants a sense of comradeship and comfort; even in their day-to-day absence, the participants felt connected with those who were, or had been, in similar positions.
Other participants utilised strategies of talking to friends or family members who were in a similar line of work:
…thinking about other ways of how can I manage this... having somebody else to talk about it with... it would have to be a friend... in a similar line of work... (Frida);
My mum’s... a Social Worker... she works as a Child Protection Conference chair... I can kind of speak to her a little bit about having a tough day... (Helen).
These are further illustrations of participants seeking to connect with people or networks that understand their professional roles, who they could talk to and reflect with in order to help them manage their transitions.
Additionally, every single participant emphasised the importance of a work-life balance, and in particular the balance between discussing work with select people who would understand, and not thinking about work in other contexts. Despite using her mother (who she did not live with) as support, Helen added it was important to keep her home life protected from the stresses of work:
…make sure that you have that break and kind of appreciate that it’s a really emotional job so it’s good to not take it home.
Amit discussed enjoying his time outside work with his young son and wife, and Maggie discussed that her choice of a therapist to discuss work was partly due to not wanting to speak about work with people who she lived with ‘day-to-day’. Although seeking support was vital to participants, they also emphasised the importance of forgetting about work, and instead enjoying their time with loved ones at home, to help them manage the emotional impact of their roles.
The participants perhaps strategically found people to support them who would understand to some degree their positions as NQCPs, but also used their homes and the people within them to take their mind off work. These can be seen as imperative implementations self-care, which they required in the midst of what we have seen was an overwhelming professional transition. The increase in responsibilities and pressures of their new roles meant that they required emotional support and understanding from others who could empathise, and each of them managed this in their own way.