Professional lead for learning disability nursing at the University of Nottingham Helen Laverty organises the annual Positive Choices conference, which takes place in Dublin on 19-20 April

Why did you choose to become a learning disability nurse?

I was 14 and school had a curriculum change: no more compulsory religious education but everyone had to do ‘beliefs and values’, which included placement time. I was allocated every Wednesday for a term in a special school in 1975. Learning disabilities had not crossed my horizons at this point. I turned up full of trepidation but excited, and was allocated to a class of seven year olds – I was hooked. But I had one burning question: why did some kids have lovely socks and others have grey nylon ones?