Life in Care: The Podcast by Amy Coleman, Our Registered Manager

Recently, we introduced you to Amy Coleman, our Registered Manager.

This week, we want to celebrate something Amy is building alongside her role here: a podcast called Life in Care.

Life in Care is a deliberately honest, conversational space dedicated to bringing voices from across the care sector together to talk about what working in care actually involves: the rewarding parts, the difficult parts, and everything that happens behind the scenes.

There are now three episodes available, with a new one released every Sunday at 5pm.

We could not be prouder of the platform Amy is building, or of what it says about the kind of leader our team is fortunate to have.

Here is a look at the three episodes so far.

The care sector is one of the largest employers in the country, and one of the most quietly significant.

And yet the people who do this work, day in and day out, are rarely given a platform on which to share what the job actually involves.

Life in Care is Amy’s attempt to change that.

In Episode 1, Amy introduces the heart behind the project.

Her aim, she explains, is to give people in care a voice, a space to share their passion, their experiences, their struggles, and the realities of the work, whoever they are and whatever their role.

She is honest from the outset that care is both deeply rewarding and, at times, exhausting, stressful, and lonely, and that many people in the sector carry that silently.

She also sets out the bigger questions she wants the podcast to explore: why the sector struggles so much with staffing and retention, why funding and support can feel so difficult for families to navigate, and how leadership and workplace culture shape the wellbeing of the people doing the work.

Above all, Episode 1 is a warm, genuine invitation to feel less alone and to understand the heart behind care.

Episode 2 turns the microphone on Amy herself.

In it, Amy reflects openly on her own journey into the sector: arriving in England from South Africa in 2019, taking her first role as a domiciliary carer, and learning, both quickly and sometimes painfully, what it really means to support vulnerable people.

She talks about the overwhelming responsibility she felt in those early weeks, the mistakes she made, and the colleagues and managers who quietly helped her grow through them.

She also reflects on the clients who shaped her perspective on care for good, the moments of laughter and friendship, the gentle humour that develops over time, and the way real relationships build between a carer and the people they support.

These are the parts of care that are not really visible from outside the sector, and that the working day does not often allow space to articulate. The podcast does.

The episode also touches on resilience: working through the COVID-19 pandemic in a frontline role, holding down a long-distance marriage, and gradually progressing from Carer to Ambassador, to Care Coordinator, to Client Care Manager, and ultimately to Registered Manager.

Above all, it is a reminder that care, at its core, is about people – compassion, connection, and the impact that carers and the people they support have on one another.

Episode 3 was originally planned as a guest interview, but when the guest had to pull out at the last minute, Amy turned the change of plan into something valuable: a solo reflection on the theme that has shaped her whole career – leadership.

Her central distinction is a simple but powerful one: management is a function, but leadership is an influence.

Services need to be compliant, rotas need covering, and standards need maintaining, but Amy argues that the leaders who make the greatest difference are the ones who coach instead of commanding, who listen before they speak, and who combine high standards with genuine kindness.

She is honest about her own growth, including learning the difference between getting compliance from people and earning their commitment.

She also draws a thoughtful line between delegation and development: giving someone a task to reduce your own workload is delegation, while giving them an opportunity because you believe they can grow from it is development.

The episode goes on to explore learning cultures, psychological safety, and the place of safeguarding within all of it, before applying the well-known Five Dysfunctions of a Team model to the realities of domiciliary care.

It is a genuinely insightful listen for anyone who leads a team, in care or otherwise.

It would be easy to treat Amy’s podcast as a personal side project that has nothing to do with our clients.

We do not see it that way, and we think it tells you something important about the team behind the care.

For families considering home care for an older relative, the single most important question is rarely about hours, costs, or rotas.

It is about people.

Who, exactly, will be coming into the house?

What kind of culture do they work in?

And what kind of leadership is shaping the day-to-day care?

These are precisely the questions Life in Care explores, week after week.

The qualities that drive Amy to build the podcast in her own time because she believes the conversation matters are the same qualities that shape how our Carers are recruited, trained, supported, and led.

They are the foundation of what we mean by premium home care. Families deserve to know who is leading the team supporting their loved one, and the podcast is one of the most honest ways to find out.

All three episodes of Life in Care are available now, with a new episode released every Sunday at 5pm.

You can listen on Spotify or on Apple Podcasts or watch on YouTube.