
Victoria Pallen
My name is Victoria Pallen. I have lived in Southend for 32 years and have worked for Southend City Council for 26 years in a number of different roles, always linked to children and families.
I worked as the Assistant SENCo in a large secondary school in the borough for 6 years, before moving on to Southend Youth Offending Service as a Team Coordinator for 5 years. A short secondment covering a long term sickness as the Placements Officer for Social Care before I became a Locality Manager for 6 years which was the start of the Early Help style of working. Localities then merged with the newly formed Government incentive Troubled Families and became Early Help Family Support which I led on for two years.
From there I had a change when I became the Early Help Front Door Manager processing all referrals into Children’s Services and allocating according to need. No team, no families, no children, just me and my laptop. It was a lonely role, but ideally suited to lockdown as it turned out, and I stayed for 5 years. A restructure and a colleague’s retirement led to me being offered my current role as Team Manager for Southend Youth Services and Targeted Youth Services. No previous experience of Youth Work but I got stuck in! Managed to get bursaries for Youth Work qualifications for my team from NYA and lead by example by undertaking the L2,3 & 4 myself. It’s nice being back with young people, although I don’t work all of the sessions. I am passionate about giving the young people new opportunities and enabling them to have some fun in a trying world. I remember my own youth club days very fondly.
Outside of work, I am Mum to three very grown up children and Grandma to five so far! I do a lot of running and live for live music.
I put myself forward to be a Trustee for E&EM RYWU to learn more about what other youth services provide and to have a voice to enable the young people to have a voice to in turn influence change. I’m keen to be involved.