Lancaster youth charity’s new manager is off to a fighting start

“My first day at Lancashire Youth Challenge was spent in a boxing club, which I wasn’t expecting,” said Rachel, who is LYC’s first operations manager.

Her training in non-contact boxing was to learn how the activity can build young people’s confidence, resilience and self-esteem, which is what LYC is all about.

Now all the LYC team has been trained in the psychologically informed non-contact boxing programme at Empire Fighting Chance in Bristol, local young people will feel the benefit too.

Such an experience may be a world away from Rachel’s previous job at More Music in Morecambe where she worked for 20 years but her new role still involves supporting young people as well as overseeing the operational management of the Queen’s Award-winning charity.

Brought up and educated in Lancaster where she still lives, Rachel was the drummer with local band Angelica before taking youth and community studies at university and becoming a qualified youth and community worker.

She taught at Lancaster & Morecambe College when it had a music department and many of her former students now work in the music scene including the guitarist with Massive Wagons.

Since 2004, Rachel worked at More Music and was youth programme manager there for the past decade.

“People can be quite negative about young people but at More Music they had a safe space to develop their own identities and LYC takes that to the next level with the challenges and opportunities they give to them,” said Rachel.

“My passion is giving youth a voice and providing young people with opportunities to take the lead which I’m going to help develop at LYC.”

LYC runs an exciting year-round programme of active movement and emotional wellbeing programmes, creative arts activities, nature-based projects and outdoor expeditions.

And part of Rachel’s job will be to project manage LYC’s Time to Breathe programme which provides an environment for young people to experience the benefits of being in nature.

When not working, Rachel keeps her musical interest alive by playing violin alongside her DJing husband Ash and is mum to a nine-year-old daughter.

For more information on LYC and how to support it, visit www.lancashireyouthchallenge.co.uk