MY SAD ATTEMPT AT THE JAMES BOND LOOK!
Hi there everyone, I’m Francis Behen, Service Manager at East Craigs and Cardross Learning Disabilities Services. I am 48 years old, residing over in Fife with my partner Aleksandra and three – yes, three girls aged 4, 16 and 19 ??!!!
As a kid growing up in our house, on football match day it was chaos with Dad being a Man Utd fan; Mum being an Everton fan and myself being a Liverpool Fan… Now if you know anything about football, you can imagine the banter that would go around!!!
I always believed I was going play football for Liverpool, until the day as a 12 year old, my Coach put his arm around my shoulder and said, “Son, give it up – you’re not very good (edited version). So, the focus eventually turned to Engineering as I got older.
I got involved in the Health and Social Care sector just over 9 years ago for personal reasons, after retiring from the Engineering/Construction Industry. During my time in the engineering field, I was extremely fortunate to travel the globe from the East, Middle East, Africa, Australasia, and the Americas.
It was an exciting, albeit a challenging time, however, not much fun when you are living out of a suitcase going from airport to hotel to construction sites, which would be repeated time and time again. Onwards and upwards! After retiring, I joined the Health and Social Care sector for a more meaningful and fulfilling purpose in life.
I joined an organisation over in Fife as a Support Worker, going through the various ranks until I was appointed Deputy Manager, after which I left to join withYOU.
It was in July 2018 that I joined our amazing organisation as a Senior Support Worker at the Older People’s service at St Leonard’s. It was here that the true meaning of care and support hit home. I was very fortunate to work alongside some incredible individuals within the Service and to have that hands-on approach to person centred care and support. For this I thank them all for the time I spent there. Oh, and for the record the People we Support are awesome too.
Moving on to 2020, an incredible opportunity arose when the Service Manager’s post became vacant at East Craigs. It was an opportunity that I grabbed with both hands and, as the saying goes, the rest is history… or for history to be written, the journey continues!