Making an Impact: A New Youth and Schools Worker's Introduction

Hello, I am Tom the new Youth and Schools worker for The Shed, joining the amazing team already here.

I have been doing youth work for many years, 16 to be exact. This has taken many different forms (Church based to Outdoor adventure centres) over the years and in many different places across the UK.

I was born in Preston Northern England, in December of 1992. Little did I know at that point what I was going to do!

Fast forward 16 years of school and youth groups. My youth leader asked me and a couple of friends to help set up and run a younger youth club. This is where my youth worker journey began.

This led to me going on a gap year with SU Scotland. There were 2 main focuses, one was schools work and the other outdoor activities, both different but still youth work. And then I moved to London for university! As soon as I could, I moved back up to Scotland and started back at Alltnacriche outdoor centre. I became a trainee outdoor instructor and very quickly was looking after the bushcraft, wildlife studies and the bike fleet at the centre. 2 years later I moved to another outdoor centre but I sustained an injury which meant I couldn’t continue. I moved back to Lancaster for a maternity cover youth work post, for my good friend & ex youth leader.

I moved back to Aviemore to get married and have been married for 5 years! My wife and I have been leading a Sunday evening youth group, for the last 5 years. We continued through COVID online and restarted in person when we could meet outside. Once it was safe to do so, we then moved inside, instead of freezing outside through the winter.

In my last job I was focusing on community work but with a heavy youth focus, as this was where the community pointed as an area of need. I set up a youth drop in for those in High school, worked in a primary school with the children on their school garden, set up film nights twice a month for one of the smaller villages in the local area. I also volunteer at Alltnacriche doing the campfires for the schools who would come and have their P7 residential at the centre.

Now here I am! I have been apart of clubs for a few weeks now, and strangely my skill at playing pool has gone up a level or two. It might just be down to the new pool table though!

It has been great getting to know the young people in all of the groups and challenging them to pool. As well as learning new games, which I will be buying to add to my own collection.

As I continue working for The Shed Project, I am hoping to build positive relationships with the young people and get started with all the things that haven’t started yet like the P7 club. As my family and I settle into Island life, I might be able to continue winning a couple of games of Pool along the way!