Laura’s Story
For more than twenty years, military life shaped Laura’s world. Her husband has served in the British Army for 21 years and continues to serve today, and together they have navigated deployments, relocations, and the constant adjustments that come with service life. Alongside that, Laura built her own career as a qualified paramedic, working in local ambulance services before moving into the NHS 111 service. Now based at RNAS Yeovilton, she balances work, family life, and the unique demands that come with being part of a military household.
Military life brought incredible friendships and experiences she wouldn’t trade. But it also shaped her career in ways she hadn’t always anticipated. Frequent moves, long periods of separation, and the responsibility of holding everything together at home made it difficult to build long-term progression. Becoming a first time parent added another layer of joy and challenge. Looking back, she can see how much strength she developed through those years – although at the time, it didn’t always feel that way.
Leaving the ambulance service marked a major turning point. She had loved her job, but the intensity of frontline care, combined with the pressures of military family life and becoming a new parent, meant she needed to step back for her own wellbeing. What she hadn’t anticipated was how disorientating that change would feel. The routine she had relied on disappeared overnight. Years of frequent relocations and putting her family’s needs first had already made it difficult to build steady career progression, and stepping away from frontline work only amplified that uncertainty. She wasn’t sure what direction to take next, and translating her clinical experience into new roles proved far more complicated than she expected. Her confidence dipped, and she found herself questioning where she fit.
A referral from the Forces Employment Charity led to Lifeworks. Laura hoped the programme might help her rebuild her confidence and understand how to present her skills to employers in a way that made sense outside the ambulance service. What she found was exactly what she needed.
From the moment she joined the course, she felt understood. Ian, her course lead, created a space where she felt supported rather than judged. The group environment helped too; hearing others share their own experiences reminded her she wasn’t alone in feeling lost after leaving a demanding clinical role. The practical guidance – CV writing, interview preparation, and reframing her skills – gave her tools she could use immediately. But the biggest shift was internal as she began to recognise her own value again.
The course helped her see that the qualities she had developed through military family life – resilience, adaptability, organisation, problem‑solving – were professional assets. Lifeworks helped her articulate them clearly and confidently.
With renewed belief in herself, Laura updated her CV, tailored her applications, and approached interviews with a clearer sense of what she could offer. She became more proactive in seeking roles that aligned with her skills and ambitions, and she learned how to communicate her experience in a way employers could easily understand.
Soon after completing the programme, she secured a role with Herts Urgent Care (HUC) as a Clinical Advisor, providing medical triage. It was a position that made full use of her clinical background while offering more stability and predictability than frontline ambulance work, better suiting the realities of military family life and parenthood. The role allowed her to continue helping patients in a meaningful way, but in an environment that better matched her circumstances. Having purposeful work again restored her confidence and reaffirmed that her skills were valued.
Looking back, Laura describes Lifeworks as a turning point. It reminded her that asking for help is a strength, not a weakness and it showed her that there are organisations genuinely committed to supporting people through transition, and that her experiences hold real value.
She would recommend Lifeworks to anyone connected to the Armed Forces who is navigating change, uncertainty, or a loss of confidence. For her, it marked the beginning of a new chapter, one where she feels ready for whatever comes next.
