Board of Directors

The role of a Director at the Regional Youth Work Unit is an essential one for the effective development and governance of the organisation. A Director at the Unit has a number of roles which assist the management and development within the organisation.

Primary Roles:

• To develop and monitor the strategic direction of the organisation

• To ensure the financial probity of the organisation

• To support and monitor the operational functions of the organisation

• To work in the best interests of the Unit and promote the work of the organisation the wider youth sector

Our Current Board members are;

Kevin Morris – Chair

Marc Mason – Treasurer
Marc works in local government, leading on early intervention services for children in his local authority. He has undertaken a variety of roles over the years in five local authorities from early years through to schools and the youth service to adult education. He has been a Principal Youth Officer and a Principal Adult Education Manager and at one stage was Chair of LEAFEA, which is the national network for all Adult Education Services in England. Marc has also been in charge of the Tees Valley Music Service, the Cleveland Multicultural Service and his authority’s swimming programme.
In his spare time he’s a keen long distance runner and follows Middlesbrough FC around the country.

Angela Carter
Angela has 10 years experience in HR and is currently HR Manager at Northumbria University where she has responsibility to provide modern, proactive, strategic and customer-valued human resource management (HRM) and development (HRD) advice to Schools and Services, to support achievement of the University’s Corporate Strategy. Angela is also responsible for contributing to the development of individuals and teams to maximise performance and to lead on specific projects and contribute to the development of HR policy. Previously she has worked for University of Sunderland, the NHS and in the retail sector with Safeway.

Malcolm Craven

Mark Bagnall
Mark is a qualified youth worker, teacher & trainer. He has over 30 years’ experience of working with young people; setting up youth & community projects; managing youth & community workers. He has been the chairperson of a detached project for 16 years and also for a centre based project for 8 years.

Michael King
Michael is a freelance consultant who supports organisational development mainly to the voluntary and community sector. He worked in the voluntary sector for over twenty years in senior positions nationally, regionally and locally. He has experience of project development and management, monitoring and evaluation and trustee training. In addition he has represented the voluntary sector in the development of a number of local and regional initiatives including the formation of Connexions Tyne & Wear, the Newcastle Voluntary Sector Regeneration Project, Regional Youth Work Initiatives and the development of the compacts between Newcastle City Council and the Voluntary and Community Sector.
In his current role he is the North East Partner for a programme called ‘Faith to Engage’ which is being run nationally by  Faithworks, and is supporting the development of work focussing on the resettlement of offenders.

Pete Stout

Rhiannon Bearne
Rhiannon is Policy Manager for homelessness organisation, the Cyrenians, based in Newcastle-upon-Tyne. She is responsible for the organisation’s internal and external policy brief, covering the charity’s variety of accommodation provision, support services and social enterprises. Prior to joining the Cyrenians Rhiannon was Social Enterprise Executive at Business and Enterprise Group, the North East’s Business Link provider organisation. She has also held posts at VONNE, the regional support body for voluntary and community groups in the North East. Prior to working in the voluntary sector, her career has encompassed a range of public sector roles at sub-regional and regional levels, covering economic regeneration and development briefs.
Born in Tottenham, North London, she has been resident in the North East for more than a decade and is active in the region’s third sector. Along side the Unit she is also a Trustee of the Millfield House Foundation, a regional grant-making organisation devoted to building a better society in the North East.

Tom Adams
Tom spent his working life as both a frontline social worker and senior manager in statutory and voluntary organisations working with children, young people and families. He specialised in setting up Local Authority services for, and working with, young people in care and in contact with the youth justice system. This was before moving in to the voluntary sector to run a youth homeless project for a national charity. He ended his career running the North East’s only regional children’s charity. Since retirement he has joined the boards of a number of young people focused projects and is chair of one. Retirement has also allowed Tom to concentrate on his new life as a potter.