Alumni Spotlight: Kadine Thompson
Intro
When choosing a degree, prospective students often think of location, content and rankings. In the case of Kadine Thompson, it was about choosing a course that offered her a respectable qualification alongside flexibility, allowing for a work-school-life balance. During her degree, Kadine was also juggling work, managing several creative projects in multiple fields and being a mother of three.
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Kadine started her Working with Children foundation degree in 2014 and then her top up BA in Working in Integrated Services for Children in 2016.
Although she started her UWL journey in 2014 as a mature student, her motivation to work in the social work and care sector existed decades ago. Being inspired by her mother, who worked in the same field, at age 15 Kadine reached out to the local authorities' social work team and expressed her interest in interning with them for her three weeks' work experience. They gladly took her onboard and this became her first exposure to social care.
The three weeks in the social work team was my first taster, and since then I've never looked back. It’s always been social care, it’s always been working with children and families, young people, and the rest is history.”
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She had previously part studied for a social work degree, but due to the hundred-day unpaid placement required by the course, she had to choose between leaving her job and giving up her degree at the end of her first year.
I made the decision to stay in my job and give up my degree to provide for my daughter, which was a sacrifice on my part.”
But remaining in her job as a social care assistant, Kadine was still gaining valuable experience. While doing everything from child protection to adoption teams along with getting involved in court work, she found her niche.
With the broad range of cases I worked with, there was nothing I was not doing. It was under the pupillage of supervising social workers; I had fantastic mentors that I worked with. I worked with the best of the best. The work can be draining, but is so extremely rewarding.”
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Kadine returned to university in 2014 to achieve a personal goal; gaining a degree. She was based in Stanmore and graduated with a BA Integrated Services for Children and Young People degree in 2018.
The level of teaching was second to none, it was nurturing to come into education again as a mature student. Having had experience in the Social Work field before starting my degree showed me that local authorities have more gone into multi-agency work. Social work, education and everything is merged together. The nature of my course embodies that and doesn’t have an isolated approach.”
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Even though, at times, managing work, university and her family became difficult, Kadine kept working towards her goal.
Our lead lecturer told me to imagine myself walking across that stage in a cap and gown and those words stuck with me. When I was low on motivation, her words stayed with me.”
All of Kadine’s effort paid off. She is currently working with vulnerable people in police custody, supporting them through the process and protecting their welfare.
You can’t put Kadine in a box, because I have these gifts, from God, that I feel like I need to use so the world can benefit from these gifts.”
Kadine credits much of her success to her faith, which inspires her to keep working and finding new ways to develop.
writing
Kadine’s journey has been incredible not only due to her success in the social work field, but also because of her parallel achievements in other fields such as acting, writing, events and hair and make-up.
During school Kadine was a child actress who had roles in BBC shows such as Grange Hill. During college Kadine studied theatre studies, where she learnt how to script-write. This in turn was a catalyst to writing her first book, which was published during her time at UWL. Kadine has made a script out of her first book, which is a mini autobiography, which is currently being filmed as a series under her production company KW Productions.
This will be pitched to major TV channels, because these are subjects that people are experiencing and they need a voice. This ties down back into assisting people, which is, at the heart of it all, who I am.”
events management
In 2013, Kadine also ventured into events management and started working with a lot of brides. She offered services such as doing décor, organizing vendors and providing consultation. During this, she realised the one thing she couldn’t professionally offer yet was hair and makeup, which led to the birth of her company Make Up by Kay Elise.
While doing social work on the side, she acquired a qualification in hair and make-up. This opened plenty of doors for her, as this career path took off. Following her success in the fields, Kadine then had a goal to work with BBC or ITV. Since then, Kadine has worked on the BBC’s The One Show, ITV’s Lorraine and Channel 5’s The Wright Stuff.
I am definitely proud of going back and getting my degree at UWL. I am grateful for the pupillage that I had. If I wouldn’t have done it, I would have lived with the regret of not having gone back to university.”
Kadine has this advice for students who are working towards their degree:
Follow your heart and never give up. I will keep going till my last breath so I will always encourage people to keep going. There will be bumps in the road but you should always keep moving forward.”
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