Sophie -
now a care-leaver from her kinship placement
• "I know that I wouldn't be the way I am, sitting here today, and I
wouldn't have a job because I wouldn't have had the work ethic
either . . . I wouldn't have been the way I was at school if it wasn't for
them . . . They [my aunt and uncle] just wanted me to do well, and
they would have done anything. . . . They were very good at getting
me everything . . . they were absolutely brilliant . . . Especially my
uncle, it was like it was my daddy. . . I would love to have a
relationship with them, you know, but my aunt is a very funny-nature
person and she sticks by her guns, you know, and she maybe thinks I
let her down a wee bit whenever I moved out . . . [Crying] I love them,
I absolutely love them (Sophie) (McSherry & Malet, 2018).