Shaun’s brother was also a support worker and Shaun first got a taste for social care when he would pay visits to the home his brother worked in.

“I’ve always worked in the area of behaviour that is perceived as challenging,” says Shaun, 35, who joined ASC six years ago. “There’s so much you can do. Being able to turn someone’s mood around is a good feeling.”

Apart from the personal satisfaction of working with adults with personality disorders, learning disabilities and histories of mental health issues, Shaun finds that ASC works for him on a practical level. “I work my shift patterns so that I get every Friday off. They’ve been really accommodation with that.”

What advice does he have for people who want to get into this field of work? “You need to be able to brush things off. The guys living here can be realliy verbal.  You have to be a person that doesn’t take things too much to heart, someone with a positive outlook.”

Kirsti had wanted to go into social care ever since having a social worker herself in her youth. “She completely changed my life for the better. Everything I’ve accomplished so far has been because of her,” says Kirsti, who had struggled with anxiety growing up.Gaining the social worker’s support and growing her own confidence as a result made Kirsti consider working in care, and she knew that being a support worker at ASC was a great first step towards that. ASC, based in Balbeggie, Perthshire, specialises in adults with learning disabilities and challenging behaviour.

A year after starting work there, Kirsti, 24, knew she had found her vocation. “It has inspired me to go into adult nursing. I like the service users, as we call them, so much and I can relate to them. They just need that little more help to achieve quality of life.”

Even on her hardest days at work, Kirsti says she knows she’s in the right profession. “I could have the worst, most challenging day but I always want to come back.

It’s not just the service users who are inspiring, the staff are too, and they’re very supportive. Working here has changed my life.”

Now studying for an HNC in social science, Kirsti is on her way towards not just fulfilling a dream but following in her own social worker’s footsteps and changing people’s lives for the better.

From taking them shopping to accompanying them to a football match to catching a bus to styling their hair, Lorianne says it’s all about allowing them to do the things we take for granted. “Something simple like straightening one of the girls’ hair can mean the world to them. And of course you build up bonds with them. They don’t get anybody else to express their feelings to or get a hug from.”

Lorianne, 28, joined ASC in 2012 after working in retail. She now plans to stay in the social care sector, completing SVQs in social services and healthcare with the aim of going into mental health nursing.

She says she knew she was in the right job when she took a break from the ASC facility to care for an individual privately in his home. “I really missed the residents and service users. You get to know them, you see them more than you do your own family.”

Bonds are formed, he says, both with the service users and the staff. “We’re working with adults with learning disabilities, histories of mental health, and behaviour that challenges, so it’s a very challenging environment. But there’s such a sense of achievement.”

Something one of his managers told him sums up his and other staff members’ attitude to working at ASC, and is fundamental to the facility’s success – so much so that people travel far to work here. “She said we work in their home, they don’t live in our work.”

Does he take his work and perhaps stresses home with him? “I’m good at cutting off and separating work from personal life,” says Liam.

He works long shifts but only three days a week, and he has every second weekend off. “I love that flexibility, and ASC has been great at allowing me to take summers off as well. I’ve done summer camps in America, for example, and come back to work afterwards.”

Liam, previously in a “dead end retail job”, came to the job with previous knowledge of it; his sister worked at ASC and recommended he apply. But the experience has turned out to be much richer than he was expecting. “I thought it would be more of a day centre job, I didn’t expect to be a big part of their lives.”

Three years on, working at ASC has inspired him to pursue a career in mental health nursing.

The start of Laura’s working life was spent in retail. When she moved to Bridge of Earn with her new partner and created a blended family, she became a childminder.

It was after a conversation with Leanne Fairburn, a friend who is now Manager at ASC, based in Balbeggie, that Laura was persuaded to try another sort of care. ASC supports adults with a diagnosed learning disability and associated mental health conditions. “I remember Leanne saying it was just a brilliant place to work, that no two days were the same, and that with my experience in childcare I would fit in.”

She found the idea of working with adults with learning disabilities and behavioural issues “challenging”, but reasoned that she had valuable tools from her childcare and parenting experience.

A major draw for Laura has been that ASC lets her fit her work around her children. Laura does both domestic shifts and support worker shifts and her working hours change with the school year. During school holiday periods, for example, she prefers to work night shifts. That means she can go home and rest, but still be in the house with the children when they’re off school.

But the best thing about working at ASC for Laura is the people – both her colleagues and the service users. “It’s a family here. You know the staff have your back,” she says.

Laura says the proof of how well ASC works is in the number of agency staff she sees swapping their temporary jobs for permanent contracts with ASC. “Everybody comes together to help one another to do what’s best for the service user.”

Interested in joining her? View our vacancies here. Or email [email protected]

“The team welcomes everyone from Day One,” says Alison, a Staff Nurse at ASC. “It was never that I was agency to them [and not part of the team]. They just included me. There literally is no ‘i’ in this team.”

A long-time nurse, she spent a number of years in the NHS. When she left, she worked in Elderly Mentally and Infirm (EMI) units and with people with learning disabilities and behavioural issues. She came to ASC for what was initially intended to be a three-month stint and “fell in love with the place”.

It’s something you hear a lot from the staff at ASC, which supports adults with a diagnosed learning disability and associated mental health conditions. Once they have the ASC ‘bug’ they’re committed, bonding with the team and the service users.

But for Alison there was another reason to feel that, in her own words, “this was home”. Alison’s adult son has autistic tendencies, which wasn’t diagnosed until he was midway through high school. Seeing how the support staff at ASC deal with service users – many of whom have autism – has had a direct impact on Alison’s home life, for the better.

“Just in the way I’m interacting with him now, there were things I had never thought of trying with him. I’m finding I now deal with it better. Working at ASC has helped me as a parent,” she says.

Want to join Alison and the ASC team? View our vacancies here.