(he/they)

Lead Youth Worker and Designated Safeguarding Lead

Jay, a qualified youth and community worker, is inspired by a powerful quote that they came across on their degree course: ‘Be the person you needed when you were younger’.  This guides their youth work practice. 

While growing up, Jay formed a strong bond with their youth worker, who helped them through some difficult times.  In time, Jay became a volunteer young leader at this youth group.  When the leader left, Jay and the other volunteer leaders stepped into the breach until the new worker was recruited, planning and delivering the club’s programme.  This convinced Jay that this was the career path that they wished to pursue, eventually leading to them enrolling on a youth & community work degree. 

Part of Jay’s degree course involved a placement to develop their youth and community skills in a real-life setting.  This was where their engagement with LGBT+ youth work started.  Growing up, Jay wished that they had had access to a specialised provision for LGBT+ young people, as they feel that this would have had a positive benefit on them in their formative years.  Determined that other young people should not have to miss out on this service in the way they did, they set about developing a specialist provision through their placement.  Initially, Jay did this as a placement student but, having managed to secure some funding, they were then able to do it on a paid basis. 

Jay also realised that there is only limited LGBT+ youth work training built into the youth and community work degree curriculum.  This is another area that they would like to see addressed to ensure that LGBT+ young people will be offered services that meet their needs (including a safe space) by having aware and empathetic youth workers supporting them.  They also advocate that young people should have more input into shaping youth worker training, by asking them what they would like from their youth workers, as the service is designed for them. 

Jay has worked on various youth work projects from the Newport Community Youth Project, a multi-funded initiative, with various different youth work strands, such as girls, marginalised groups, mainstream youth work and then the LGBT+ provision which they founded.   

In 2021, they joined the Alphabets youth project, based in Yate, for a period.  This involved working in their LGBT+ provision and delivering LGBT+ awareness workshops in schools.  They also support the Diversity Trust’s CEO, Berkeley Wilde, on Voice and Influence projects.