Family Support Worker
I am one of two family support workers for the team.

In my past roles I have worked as a project leader for Redcar and Cleveland Youth service. A positive activities for Young people Personal assistant for Connexions Hartlepool and a Youth inclusion worker for Safe in tees Valley.

Young Carers Family Support Worker
Hello my name is Steve Plant and I'm the newest member of the Hartlepool Young Carers Team.

I have previously worked as an Outreach worker in a museum teaching young people WW1 and WW2 history.

Prior to that I have worked as a Chef in hotels and restaurants around the North East (if you are familiar with Cordon Bleu, forget it cos my foods generally cordoned off).

Before that I was employed as a Police Officer for 15 years and worked as the community beat officer on the Rift House Ward in Hartlepool.

As a community police officer I did a considerable amount of work with the young people on the estate and set up an anti crime youth club as well as other initiatives.

Young Carers Co-ordinator
Hi I am Karen and it is my job to make sure that you as a young carer can have your voice heard. My first job working in the voluntary sector was with Hartlepool Young Carers working part-time with the 16 to 19 age range funded by Connexions. I have also worked in a woman’s refuge working with woman and children escaping domestic violence. I completed a Social Work degree in 2007 and took the role of Young Carers Co-ordinator in November of the same year.

I manage the Young Carers’ team which includes Steve and Katie our family support workers whose role it is to help you and your family get the right things in place for the person you look after. This will hopefully give you the same life chances as all your friends who do not have caring roles. It is part of their responsibility to talk to you to see what you think needs to change and how this can happen. This might be through working with you, your family and other agencies such as your school or even a social worker to help your family to put a package of services and or equipment in place. Steve and Katie also provide one to one support to help you to talk about any worries that you may have.

We also have youth and activity workers Sarah, Angela and Maria. Sarah is our activities worker and works in all weekly group sessions. Angela works with the 13 to 19 year old through a partnership Hartlepool Carers has with the Youth Service. Maria works on a sessional basis to help young carers to express their feeling through art.

Sheila is our admin support and helps us to keep us all organised by keeping all our information up to date and passes messages to us all when we are out of the office.

Hartlepool Young Carers is also part of a national Pathfinders pilot scheme which looks at the caring roles of young people who care for a parent with a mental health or substance misuse issue or if they are the sole carer.

Admin Support
Hi, I’m Sheila Simmons, I am Admin Support.

I work for the Young Carers team, generally keeping them organised and a lot of my work involves inputting information onto our database, recording stats, writing letters, organising events and sometimes, even going on trips with Young Carers if we are short staffed. If all of our team are busy or out of the building, it will probably me that you talk to if you ring the office.

Before I came to Carers I worked at another charity in Hartlepool, also doing admin work. As part of that job I also taught IT to beginners and also keep fit.

I love to do fund-raising and you will probably see my name or my face on our newsletter or web site occasionally when I have raised some cash.