Youth Work Unit Trustee Board
All YWU Board Trustees are drawn from the broad youth work and young people’s services field.
Our current Directors/ Trustees are:
Carol Stone – Chair
Carol is the former Head of Service at Calderdale Young People’s Service and also serves on the board of the NYA.
David Sharp (Company Secretary)
David Sharp has been Chief Executive of North Yorkshire Youth (NYY) since November 2011. His main responsibility is for the strategic direction of the organisation and the oversight of all major functions of the organisation.
He is also a trustee of the Arete Learning Trust and is Chairman of Community Works and Community First Yorkshire a local and countywide organisations supporting local people as well as VCS infrastructure. Through his day job he sits on the North Yorkshire County Council Safeguarding Executive Partnership, the Corporate Parenting Group and the Children and Young Peoples Overview and Scrutiny Committee as the voluntary sector representative. These representative roles along with his volunteering roles means that he receives a vast amount of information which relates to young people, the voluntary sector, local government and on running an organisation.
Graham Griffiths
Graham a qualified youth worker who has worked in both the Local Authority and the Voluntary Sector and was course leader for the Youth & Community work courses at Bradford College. He also is a member of the NYA ETS committee is active in the union and In Defence of Youth Work and Choose Youth Campaigns
Gillian Shepherd (Treasurer)
Debbie Burton
Debbie is Young People’s Engagement Manager with Doncaster Council
Christine Smith
Christine Smith has worked in Higher Education since 2007. She has worked at at the University of Hull since 2017 and is currently a Programme Director in Education Studies incorporating a Special Educational Needs and Disability Inclusion Pathway and has recently completed a term as Chair of the National Professional Association of Lecturers in Youth and Community Work. Prior to working in HE since the late 1980’s she worked in a range of youth and community settings including as a locality based Community Education Worker, Principal Youth Officer, Senior Training, Staff Development and Quality Assurance Officer and Education Manager at a City Wide Advice and Information Project for Young People.