3 December 2025
My name is Maria and I’m a Family Link Worker at Noah’s Ark.
Maria is one of Noah’s Ark’s dedicated Family Link Workers and has recently achieved a significant personal milestone – qualifying as a Level 4 Counselling Practitioner. Having worked in education and support roles for many years, Maria says gaining a formal counselling qualification felt like the natural next step.
“I put it off because at the time my kids were younger, and then one year turned into two, two then turned into five, then ten years later I had done nothing with it. I knew it was foolish not to finish so I started looking into how I’d go about it and managed to find a course that would accept me after a ten-year gap.”
"It’s changed my life. I feel like I see things so differently now..."
Returning to studying wasn’t easy. “I thought I was out of my depth,” Maria admits, “but then I realised that I was doing the role anyway, so in some respects I was ahead of them.”
Balancing work, study, and life was a challenge. “The qualification requires you to have 100 hours of practice, plus supervision, plus your own personal therapy, plus the work. And I just thought, how am I going to do that with a full-time job? There were times where I thought, I can’t do it – but I did.”
Maria credits her team at Noah’s Ark for their support: “I’m surrounded by people that have done nothing but champion and cheerlead for me.”
Reflecting on the impact of her training, Maria says: “It was never about me practicing, it was always about enhancing my work at Noah’s Ark. I look back and I can see that without the training, I wouldn’t have handled things the way I did. It’s changed my life. I feel like I see things so differently now.”
Maria reflects on how her training has deepened her ability to support families: “I feel like I can sit more with uncomfortable things. I’m happy to sit in silence. I feel like it gave me a strength that was probably already there.”
Well done, Maria – what an incredible achievement!
You can find out more about our Family Link service at: noahsarkhospice.org.uk/services/family-link
