“If you want to make a difference in someone’s life, social care is the job for you”
Danielle Lennon still remembers walking through town with a woman she was supporting in her early years as a social care practitioner. It should have been a simple community visit, part of everyday life. Instead, it became a moment that Belfast Health and Social Care Trust based Danielle has never forgotten, and something shifted in how she saw her role.
While supporting the service user in her community, she became aware of how others reacted to her. Danielle says, “I never saw anyone as any different from myself, but watching other people look at the service user differently really changed something in me. I wanted to make a difference, remove those barriers, and help create inclusiveness.”
That instinct to advocate, to challenge how people were treated, would go on to shape her career in social care. Today, Danielle is a Residential Manager of a short breaks and emergency accommodation service within the Belfast Health and Social Care Trust. However, her journey into that role began long before qualifications or leadership opportunities. It began with volunteering, and a growing certainty that she wanted to do work that felt meaningful.
Finding something that felt right
After leaving school at 16, Danielle entered the Civil Service and began working in an administrative role. The job gave her structure and routine, but she described a growing sense that it wasn’t the direction she wanted long term. At the same time, she had always been the person others turned to in her family, the one who naturally looked after people. Nursing had been suggested to her growing up, but university didn’t feel like the right path at that stage.
It was her mother who spotted an advert for a volunteer role with the Craigavon and Banbridge Young Carers Group. The group supported children and young people who had caring responsibilities at home, offering them a break and an opportunity to socialise. That first experience of work in social care changed a lot for Danielle, she reminisces, “I remember coming home after volunteering and saying to my father ‘I just want to help people. If I can make one person’s life better, then I’ll have done my job.’” What stayed with her most was the feeling of making a difference.
As Danielle says, “The feeling I got when I finished my administrative job was not the same feeling I got when I finished a Saturday with young carers. These were two very different experiences. I felt I personally got a lot more from the unpaid role.” What emerged from Danielle’s volunteer work was a sense of purpose that became the foundation of her future career, with full support from her parents.
Building a career in care and support
Danielle’s first paid job as a social care practitioner was as a Project Worker in a mental health and learning disability charity, where she progressed to a Team Leader. These early roles gave her experience and began shaping her approach to leadership.
In 2015, she joined the Belfast Trust as a Senior Support Worker in a supported living service. Here, her understanding of person-centred care deepened. But it was also here that the emotional weight of inequality became more visible, reinforcing the idea that social care is not only about support, but also about challenging attitudes in society.
As she worked, Danielle completed a Degree in Health and Social Care through The Open University before going on to complete a Postgraduate Certificate in Health and Social Care Management at Ulster University. Danielle doesn’t see that journey as separate stages, but as something continuous. “I’m proud that I’ve worked my way up to a management role and proud that I completed my degree and postgraduate alongside working full-time, doing it when the time was right for me,” Danielle reflects on her journey.
Leading a short breaks and emergency service
Today, Danielle is a Residential Manager for a short breaks and emergency accommodation service in Belfast. The service provides planned respite stays for individuals on a rotational basis. Around 54 individuals use the service, as part of planned stays or in response to urgent concerns. Each day brings a different combination of people, needs and circumstances. She says, “My day is a mixture of being office-based and then spending time directly with the service users, which is my favourite thing about the job.”
For Danielle, social care is built on values. She highlights communication, teamwork, resilience and compassion as essential qualities. Above all, she emphasises advocacy. She is clear that each individual must be treated with dignity, saying, “When I think someone’s not being treated right I will very much advocate for them all day long. I’m very protective, just to make sure they’re getting the same treatment.” This sense of determination and responsibility runs through everything she does.
Why she encourages other to consider social care
Danielle did not follow a traditional path into her career in social care. What began with administration, shifted through volunteering, and developed through frontline care has become a long-term career built on experience and progression. Because of that, Danielle is passionate about encouraging others to explore social care as a career, without assuming they need to have everything figured out from the start.
For her, volunteering was the starting point, and where Danielle understood what kind of work she wanted to do. She says, “If you want to make a difference in someone’s life, social care is the job for you.” Danielle’s story at its centre is a consistent belief – that how people are treated matters, and that social care is one of the places where that can truly change.
Take a deeper dive…You can hear more from Danielle and her work at the Belfast Trust by watching the video below
Feeling inspired?
Working together to change people’s lives… Make a difference by embarking on your journey into social care. For more information on how you can start your journey check out our Interested in becoming a social care practitioner? page or read more here.