
Alison Jolley
Born in Grantham I have lived in Northampton for almost 37 years and after qualifying as a youth worker from DMU I spent 8 years working for the County Council as a Youth Worker. Due to the removal of their youth service I moved to become the CEO of Young Leicestershire 17 years ago. As a Voluntary Sector Group we have seen and met many challenges during this time but it has, and still is, a pleasure to work in such an amazing and dedicated team. We value partnerships with both voluntary and statutory sector. These bring such a valuable addition to supporting young people across the city and county. I presently sit on the County Council’s Youth Justice Board and recently established Youth Strategic Partnership Board. This provides such a valuable platform for communication and sharing of good practice.
We are a small charity with a big reach. Young Leicestershire balances the delivery of both infrastructure support and direct delivery of youth work to over 20,000 young people. We deliver youth services in a variety ways from detached, centre based, SEND, employability and many others.
I joined the East Midlands and East of England Youth Work Unit as I am passionate about youth work and want to share this with other like minded people. Whilst I would never profess to speak on behalf of all VCS groups in the region I do understand and experience similar challenges and want to use this as a platform to advocate on our behalf with those who actively engage in championing youth work.