In 2020, I packed up my Australian life, said goodbye to my support network, and moved to Dresden, Germany with my young child and a husband who already spoke the language.

He had a job. I had a toddler, a social work degree, and absolutely no idea what I was walking into.

I had five years of professional experience helping families through some of life’s hardest moments. I knew all the theory about transition, attachment, and resilience but I still cried in supermarket car parks because I couldn’t find the right yoghurt and I was too tired to figure out why.

The German bureaucracy was relentless. The language was impossible at first. The social isolation of not yet having found my people was real. And while I was managing all of that, I was also watching my child navigate something enormous, and I was the only one they had.

I didn’t have a guide. I had Google Translate stubborn determination.

Over five years, I learnt German. I had my qualifications recognised and became registered as a Social Worker within the German system (Staatliche Anerkennung). And I welcomed a second baby. I now work within the German Social System, as a social worker with local clients, every day. I have navigated every bureaucratic process you are likely to face.

More importantly: my children are thriving. They speak German and English. They have friends. They are home.

And now, the thing I most want to do is make sure you don’t have to do what I did: figure it all out alone.