Ruth Squire is a senior practitioner who provides specialist support and advice through one-to-one sessions with young people about drug and alcohol issues. Helen Woods is also a senior practitioner, and she offers specialist support to parents and family members and family mediation.

Pauline Minshull and Jannine Dowling work for Drug Sense but are based in the Youth Offending Team. They are experienced workers who support young people and their families if they have to attend the Youth Offending Team and want support about drug and alcohol issues. They also support young people in the cells, court or young offenders institutes.

Mandy Boatswain-Tomkin is the Connexions PA and based at Drug Sense and her role is to offer advice and information to young people who are looking for work or considering training courses. Mandy can also offer support to young people in schools.

Nicola Masella’s role is to provide training, and one-to-one work to looked after children, residential staff and foster carers. She is the first point of contact if advice is required about substance misuse when it directly affects looked after children. You will be able to see Nicola’s newsletter that she produces on this website.

We have two outreach workers, Dan Dearnley and Carol Darbyshire who work out on the streets engaging with young people. They work closely with other services for young people and have put on some exciting events in Kirklees – Under 18’s nights, skateboarding competitions, off road bike trail and football tournaments to name but a few. We also value the support of our Volunteer Matt Hall who works with Outreach out on the street and representing the service at community events.

Chris Thornton co-ordinates the School Drug Referral Scheme and responds to schools if they need specialist support regarding a young person and substance misuse in their school. This consists of visiting the young person at school so they have an opportunity to speak to an experienced substance misuse worker. Parents are offered a separate appointment through this scheme.

Shaun Wong is the training co-ordinator for Drug Sense. He has a lot of experience of providing training and developing training packages for professionals and young people.

We now have a new trainee, John Fox, who was working as a volunteer supporting outreach, but he will now be “learning the ropes” within the service.

We have five workers, Ed, Claire, Angela, Cheryl and Sarah who make up the important work carried out with families. Claire Jolly and Angela McCormick are specialist children’s workers and they look at the needs of young children who are affected by substance misuse in their family. Cheryl Laird is a family worker and has had a lot of experience working with teenagers and young people. Ed Moses is the worker for Black and Minority and Ethnic families. Ed delivers drug and alcohol awareness training to community groups. He works very closely with Lifeline’s Making Things Equal service. Sarah Robinson is the parent worker providing one-to-one appointments and training for parents/carers affected by substance misuse issues in the family.

We also have a complimentary therapist and a qualified counsellor and referrals can be made directly from any member of the team.

We hope that by telling you about who we are and we can offer will make you feel more confident in contacting us. If you need any help or information and would like to speak to someone please call us on 01484-353353