Mrs Wright started her career in social work as a student on placement at Social Welfare, which is now Child Youth and Family, in 1984.
Social Welfare and Catholic Social Services decided to work together to do something for the large number of unmarried women with children at the time.
Mrs Wright became involved with running the coffee morning for single mothers that was the result of the collaboration and in November 1984 she was employed by Catholic Social Services to run the group.
It soon became apparent the women attending the morning wanted more than just coffee, she said.
They had questions about childbirth and labour and so a childbirth educator was brought to the programme.
Eventually, the Birth Support Group became a programme run solely by Catholic Support Services.
The antenatal programme was open to women throughout their pregnancy and was designed to be flexible to meet the participants' needs.
The group was also a venue for mothers to meet social service providers and learn about how the services could benefit them.
Meeting the service providers in person allowed the mothers to find out they were not so scary after all, Mrs Wright said.
After giving birth, the women would return to the group to share their birthing stories.
The group had up to 60 referrals per year, and Mrs Wright estimated she must have seen about 1500 babies born to group members in her time.
A few of these babies had returned to the group when they were grown up and pregnant with their own children. She was proud of the success some single mothers had achieved after taking part.
''Women have gone on from here and done really great things,'' she said.
Mrs Wright finishes on December 24. Her husband is also retiring from his job and the pair hope to travel, sleep in, and get involved in volunteer work.
