“I get a great sense of fulfilment from using the skills that I’ve got from my career in a very different setting, where I can benefit vulnerable children and families,” says Caritas Care Trustee, Sulin.

Sulin became a trustee because she wanted to use her professional experience in safeguarding, public protection and policing to make a meaningful difference at a more strategic level.

She said, “I wanted to contribute at a strategic level in a charity, to make a meaningful difference to children, young people and families,” she says. “Working with an adoption and fostering agency gives me the opportunity to bring a safeguarding perspective beyond my operational policing role.”

But for Sulin, becoming a trustee at Caritas Care is about more than professional experience. It is personal too. She adopted her son with Caritas Care, so becoming a trustee has given her the opportunity to give something back to the charity that played such an important part in her family’s life.

She adds, “Choosing Caritas Care as the charity I wanted to become a trustee for was very important to me. I adopted my son through Caritas Care, so becoming a trustee has also been a way of giving something back to the agency that played such an important part in our lives. It gives me a great sense of purpose to know that I can now contribute to the work of the charity and help make a difference to other children and families.”

What Sulin enjoys most about being a trustee is the opportunity to stay connected to an area she cares deeply about, while seeing it from a different perspective.

Her operational role can involve high-risk safeguarding situations that are stressful, emotive and don’t always have the positive outcomes everyone hopes for. As a trustee, she can still work within the same arena, but focus on the positive outcomes Caritas Care helps create.

“I get a great deal out of being able to consider safeguarding, child protection, adoption and fostering not only from a policing perspective, but from a charity perspective,” Sulin says.

For Sulin, being a trustee is hugely rewarding. She brings her experience, but also a different way of thinking and a desire to help the charity continually improve.

“I find it very rewarding that I can use my significant and extensive safeguarding, policing and child protection experience and bring something to the role that Caritas Care might not have had before,” says Sulin.

Ultimately, she wants contribution to help steer Caritas Care in a direction that improves things across the board and that sense of purpose is something she clearly gets a great deal of enjoyment from.