Becky Young – Case Study

This conversation features a reflective discussion between parental return-to-work coach Laura Duggal and Becky, a Senior Fundraising Manager and first-time mum, about Becky’s experience returning to work after maternity leave and receiving coaching support during that transition.

Becky is a senior fundraising manager in the charity sector who returned to work after maternity leave following the birth of her first child. She began coaching a few months into her return, as she navigated the reality of being back in a role she had held for many years,  but experiencing it in a very different way.

Within a short space of time, she found herself managing not just a return to work, but a much more subtle internal shift around identity, confidence, and capacity.

Can you tell us a bit about your background?

I’m a senior fundraising manager at a charity, and I’ve worked there for just under nine years.

I’ve always been very career-driven and very committed to my work. Before going on maternity leave, I’d built up a strong sense of confidence in my role,  I knew my job, I knew my team, and I felt very established in what I was doing.

When I had my daughter, I took maternity leave and then returned to work part-time. I came back into a team that had some familiarity, which was really helpful, but also into an organisation that had gone through a lot of change while I was away, a rebrand, a merger, and a lot of internal shifts.

So although I was returning to something I knew well, it also felt like I was stepping back into something slightly different.

I was about two or three months back into work when we started working together.

On the surface, I was fine. I was managing, I was getting things done, and I was very aware that I was lucky in a lot of ways,  I had a supportive manager, a team of other working parents, and a good nursery setup for my daughter.

But internally, it felt a bit more complicated than I expected.

I thought I’d go back and just pick things up again, but I didn’t realise how much had shifted,  both in the organisation and in me.

There was a lot more mental load than I anticipated. I was trying to do a part-time role but still working in a very full-time mindset. I’m someone who likes to do things properly and do them well, so I found myself trying to squeeze a lot into the time I had.

And then at home, I had a completely different version of me, someone who wanted to be fully present, fully switched off from work, and fully focused on my daughter.

It started to feel like I was constantly switching between two versions of myself, and neither one felt completely settled.

A big part of it was simply having space to slow things down and make sense of what was going on.

One of the biggest things I realised was that I was holding quite a strong expectation that I should just be able to go back to how I was before. But actually, that wasn’t realistic.

There was a moment where I really recognised that I wasn’t just returning to work,  I was returning to a changed organisation and a changed version of myself at the same time.

There was also something around confidence. Things that used to feel automatic suddenly required more thought. Not because I couldn’t do them, but because I was re-learning them in a different context, at the same time as adjusting to life with a baby.

And I think the coaching space helped me separate out what was actually happening from what I was telling myself I “should” be able to do.

I feel much more able to hold the fact that this is a transition, rather than something I just need to get through.

I’m more aware of the pressure I was putting on myself,  particularly around trying to be fully “on” at work and then fully “on” at home, without much space in between.

Now I’m much more conscious of how I move between those two spaces, and how important it is to give myself a bit of breathing room rather than expecting instant switching.

I also feel more grounded in the idea that I’m not trying to go back to who I was before, I’m figuring out how to work and live well as I am now.

It felt like a really safe space to be honest.

I didn’t feel like I had to present myself in a certain way or have everything figured out before I came into a session. I could just bring what was actually going on.

A lot of the value for me was in having space to think properly,  to untangle everything in my head and make sense of it without pressure to immediately fix it.

And because you don’t work inside my organisation, I felt like I could be much more open about how I was actually experiencing things, without worrying about how it would be interpreted internally.

That made a big difference.

I would say it’s worth it, even if you’re not completely sure what you need from it yet.

I think I went into it thinking I just needed a bit of support with the return to work, but actually what I got was space to understand what was happening for me more generally.

Even one conversation can help you realise you’re not the only one feeling the way you feel.

And I think that’s quite powerful in itself,  just not feeling like you’re on your own with it.

I’m still very much in the process of settling into this new version of work and life.

It feels less like I’m trying to “get back to normal” now, and more like I’m figuring out what works in this next phase.

There’s still a bit of experimentation in that, but it feels more intentional than it did at the beginning.

Yes, particularly for people coming back from maternity leave who are navigating that shift between who they were at work before and who they are now.

I think it’s especially helpful if you’re someone who is used to being very capable and independent, because you can easily end up trying to just push through without realising how much has actually changed.

Having space to step back from that and reflect is really valuable.

To learn more about implementing parental return coaching in your organisation, watch the full conversation with Becky Young, where she shares reflections on returning to work after maternity leave.