Kar-Man and Tim met eight years ago at a Family Advisory Board meeting. Kar-Man is a parent with lived experience, and Tim is a professional with learned experience; they both knew it was the beginning of a special relationship. Tim is a Family Group Conference manager and described FAB as not part of the job description but his favourite part of the job. Kar-Man had an FGC with Camden and joined the group to help improve the service with her lived experience. Recently, Jonathan, who is leading a research project on social work at Cardiff University, wanted to recruit a research assistant and knew that FAB was the place to start. The official title of the research project is ‘FGC for children and families: evaluation of implementation, context and effectiveness’. Kar-Man was perfect for the job, having received an FGC and her years of relational work with FAB. She described the opportunity enthusiastically, saying she felt ’awesome, excellent, amazing’ about using her experiences to make something positive and meaningful for others and herself. The research will last four years and is in its beginning stages, using questionnaires and workshops to ask questions of FGC recipients. The answers will then be analysed and used to create leaflets about FGC for different ages and in different languages. She loves the work, spending her time participating in meetings, designing leaflets and curating the content to go in them. In a conversation with her son, Kar-Man spoke about how they have been through the storm, and it helped build their resilience. The proper support from Camden in those early years helped her find her direction. Tim was struck by the poetry of Kar-Man returning to his Alma Mater, Cardiff University, where he qualified in social work sixteen years ago. It is a delight to be emailed from her official Cardiff email address. Both Tim and Kar-Man are amazed by the journey from those first FAB meetings to her new job with the research group.