Our people

Welcome Our New Starters

We welcomed this month, an amazing and uber experienced youth worker, LauraWoodfine.

Laura joined our team as the Youth Club Team Leader and is already bringing lots of fresh ideas to the already packed programme for teenagers at our Jubilee Streetcentre

A Yorkshire Lass by birth (we don’t hold thatagainsther),Laurabringswithherlots of specialist experience in supporting vulnerableandatriskyoungpeople.Sheis a natural mentor and communicator and finds it really easy to make instant connections with young people. Sometimes you’ve either got it or you haven’tandLauracertainlyhasit!

You can meet her most Youth club nights stood at our entrance for the 1st half hour greetingourmembers,havingalaughand juggling all the many issues her role

Shecanoftenbeseenoutsidehavingachat with young people and always draws a crowd!.

Laura,wefeelluckytohaveyouontheteam and can’t wait for all the new clubs you are planningtogetofftheground!

Wewouldliketowelcomeournewsessional Play, Youth, Sports, Outreach, and Arts Workers,we’resureyouwillmakethemall feelwelcome:

Ummaih Shah (Youth WorkerBlackburn)

Kim Studdard (Arts WorkerBlackburn/Darwen)

Claudia Hawkins (Youth Worker/Junior SessionLead-Darwen)

Jade Wilkinson (Detached/Outreach Worker-Darwen)

James Arnfield (Youth WorkerBlackburn)

Hanzalah Kapadi (Youth WorkerBlackburn)

Mohammed Kathrada (Sports WorkerBlackburn)

Zulekha Nadat (Youth WorkerBlackburn)

James Henderson (Youth WorkerDarwen)

Jessica Richardson (Sports WorkerBlackburn)

Sameenah Panchbhaya (Play WorkerBlackburn/Darwen)

AaronFletchman(BoxingCoach)

Brooke(BoxingCoach)

MiyaPasserini(DevelopmentPlayWorker Programme-Darwen)

KatieHaworth(DevelopmentPlayWorker Programme-Blackburn)

Taylor Lee-Brunton (Development Play WorkerProgramme-Blackburn)

fIRST-AID TRAINING

At Blackburn & Darwen Youth Zone, as we hopeyouknow,wearesuperseriousabout safety.Butthatdoesn'tmeanwecan'thave funwhilelearning!

Thismonthtwelveofourteammembersgot hands on with their first aid training course to make sure we keep young people with safeandhealthy.

From practising bandaging techniques to mastering CPR, we now have even more people who can give out yet another ice pack to our boxers! With this training under our belts, we ' re now even better prepared to provide a safe and secure environment for allofourmembers.

Designated Safeguarding Lead (DSL) Training

A DSL, for those of you who don’t know, is a legal requirement for any youth organisation.

ThepeoplewhobecomeDSLsareexperiencedyouthworkmanagerswhostepuptotake on this role in addition to their day job. By law, every youth organisation is required to haveoneDSL.Wenowhaveseven.

We take this part of our work very seriously and work constantly to ensure young people areassafeandprotectedastheycanbe,eitherinsideoroutsideofYouthZone.DSLsare called by our team members whenever there is an issue that may be considered safeguarding or even when they simply have a concern they would like advice on We work hard to prevent such issues occurring by great pastoral care and support. When theydohappenwearewellplacedtorespondeffectivelyandappropriately.We’reproud of our safeguarding of local young people and we know from our recent consultations thatyoungpeopleandtheirfamiliesvaluethishighlyalso.