A LONG-SERVING social worker, who has helped improve the lives of countless foster children over almost four decades in North Yorkshire, is retiring.

Hilary Musgrave joined North Yorkshire County Council in 1983 after moving to England from Dublin and her career path of working predominantly with children had already been set.

By the early 1990s she was working as part of the fostering team and has gone on to support young people needing care and the families who have chosen to look after them.

Hilary said: "My colleagues are very special and they are a big percentage of the job and achieving job satisfaction.

"I have worked with different teams and different people. They have always been a great bunch, right up to and including those I work with currently."

An early taste of social work was being asked to get involved in a recruitment event for foster carers in the first days of her career, in Dublin.

That sparked an interest which saw her increasingly involved in work with children until she joined North Yorkshire’s fostering and adoption team, as it then was, in 1990. “If I had not enjoyed it and found it satisfying and worthwhile I would not stayed in social work and would not have been doing the job I have been doing in North Yorkshire,” Hilary added.

Her role as supervising social worker for the Fostering Team West has helped ensure children have had the best possible result from their time in foster care, regardless of how long that might be.

Karen Forrester, Fostering Team manager North West, said: “Hilary will be missed by many foster carers and numerous colleagues not just from the fostering service but from the wider social work teams.

“Hilary’s career is a demonstration of the rewarding and fulfilling careers which are available to those with an interest in social work.

“I would like to thank Hilary for all her very many years of hard work and commitment to the fostering service and to the profession of social work.”

Support social workers are there to help foster families through difficulties and Hilary said foster families come from a diverse range of backgrounds and those who themselves are “extraordinary people and it has been a privilege to work with them.”