Bob Purrington

Founder & Trustee

Why I am a Trustee

As the founder of The Island, this charity is very close to my heart. I became a Trustee because I believe in contributing to the world in a proactive and positive way. No child or young person should ever have to face life’s challenges alone, and I am passionate about ensuring they are supported, encouraged, and valued.

With professional qualifications in both social work and youth work, and a postgraduate diploma in mentoring, I bring an understanding of how different disciplines can work together to better support young people. I also deeply appreciate the vital role that local volunteers play, and the unique, trusted relationships they can build to make a lasting difference in young people’s lives.

As a Trustee, I take seriously the responsibility for the health and wellbeing of everyone involved with The Island. The foundation of The Island was kindness and as a trustee I will work to ensure kindness will continue to be a core value. I hope to be able to support The Island to continue to grow in strength, guided by compassion, professionalism, and an unwavering commitment to the children and young people we serve.

Background

I started my career in 1982, aged 20 I began my lifetime of supporting young people. I qualified as a Youth and Community worker and started work in Surrey running a youth and community centre where I learnt that the real stars in young people lives are the local people, the volunteers, the coach with a boot full of footballs, the parent sewing thousands of sequins to dance outfits.

Professionals like me were travelling through young people's lives as we built our careers. My second job in Surrey was for The Youth Justice service where I learnt about Positional Power, and the antidote: making Emotional Investments. I was a youth worker in a multi-agency team and within this role I had a position of power, for example if a young person failed to comply, I could breach them and indeed I would have to breach sometimes as it was part of the job. However, it is here that I discovered the power of emotional investment. I found that by making authentic relational connections with the young scallywags, such as spending time playing football with them, I'd get a lot further than my probation colleagues and in fact, I reduced the number of times I would have rely on my position of power resulting in reductions in the number of breaches for the young people. I later conceptualised the difference between positional authority and relational authority in what I coined the model of moral authority.

April 92 I ventured North to take on the responsibility for Youth Justice in York and Selby. Youth justice was not a priority for NYCC at this time, and I found nothing was being done to support young offenders. It was common for a young offender to receive a Supervision Order only to find no one would be supervising them. So, I used my Surrey experience and with a team of sessional workers set up supervision centres. The sessional workers were locally trained and were able to make sound relationships with the young people, resulting in meaningful change in the area.

In 1996 City of York Council was formed and I qualified as a Social Worker and began to experience even more positional power. Three years of supporting children and their families I learnt you can still make emotional investments in the whole family. A small investment would be a car ride to pick up nappies or playing board games involving siblings, simple but powerful stuff.

In 1999 I became a youth work manager another change in code I was beginning to class myself as a Youth-Social worker and developed a brand of Youth Work where the service scored goals in other people’s nets. Targets became joint goals with other agencies, collaborating with sexual health staff to lower the numbers of teenage pregnancies, initiating early intervention within schools to reduce exclusions with Danesgate, and developing Sleeper Path (now known as the Tool Box) which employed motor mechanics to reach young petrol heads. We also joined up with the Head of SEND to establish Choose 2 supporting children with special needs and continued to oversee the positive work of Network2. The flexibility of Youth Work was our strength where a need was identified York Youth Service would contribute in meeting that unmet need. 

One unmet need was services for 8-to-13-year-olds. A group that found themselves excluded from Youth Centres due to their age, yet we started finding 8-year-olds were turning up and trying to access these spaces. Youth Workers were frustrated as they felt that there wasn't anything they could do.

So, with all my learning about the value of volunteers investing in the lives of vulnerable children and how effectively making emotional investments can bring you relational authority. I knew that there was only one approach that would be the best fit for these 8-to-13 year olds: the distinctive and powerful intervention of mentoring.

I and 6 colleagues went about meeting that unmet need by developing a mentoring service for the children and young people aged 8-to-13 years, supporting them through the tricky transition from primary school to secondary. The Island took a year to get its Charity registration and started mentoring in 2005. Over the past 20 years the island has supported hundreds of children and trained numerous volunteer mentors. The mentors are the island. The training is highly regarded by a wide range of people and throughout York you find social workers, health workers, and youth workers who have used their experience as a trained mentor to launch their professional careers. 

The Island is always in demand, and the lack of youth services has meant the Island now serves 8-to-19-year-olds. In order to keep on top of the referrals the Island runs a variety groups for young people whilst maintaining our 1-to-1 mentoring relationships. The Island will continue to offer mentor training so that our mentors can continue to invest in children and young people. The Island is a kind charity, we were founded in kindness and will continue to demonstrate kindness as we grow and develop.

I really enjoy mentoring tales so here are a few of my favourites:

·       A selectively mute 12-year-old girl who reported having no friends at school and started to avoid attending, met up with a pal on one of our group sessions. With a little support from a staff member who took them out for a coffee and nurtured this friendship to grow, we saw the young girl improve her school attendance.

·       A 10-year-old lad from Tang Hall would visit Selby Abbey with his mentor so he could play with his toy cars. The young boy was too frightened to play in his local neighbourhood. The mentoring relationship allowed a small boy to be a child. Illustrating the power of investments of time and space.

·       A mentor recollected to me, how surprised he was that an ex-young mentee crossed the road to say hello to him "he just used to tell me to F off" the mentor shared. I reminded the Mentor what the young mentee had once said at a review "at least you turned up each week so I could tell you to F off". Again, illustrating the hidden power of space, time, and commitment.

Thanks to the children and young people, to the dedicated staff team who are oh so talented, to the Trustee team for their commitment and to real stars the Mentors.

Laurence Beardmore

Chair

Why I am a Trustee

My journey from being a volunteer children's football coach to an Island mentor solidified my belief in the power of positive adult role models; I became a trustee to help ensure that all young people and children are given the same foundational opportunities that I know the charity provides

Background

Laurence John Beardmore is a strategic and determined leader with a consistent track record of driving business growth and operational improvements across diverse sectors. With a career spanning small, medium, and Global commercial organizations, he excels at developing strategy, leading transformation, and delivering results.
As the former owner and Group Commercial Director of York Coffee Emporium, he masterminded a full business turnaround in 4 years, increasing annual revenue from £15k to £1.3M and building a profitable, turnkey operation before divesting the company.
His earlier career includes significant director-level roles at MooD International and General Dynamics, where he was repeatedly called upon to lead complex operational turnarounds, capture major new bids worth hundreds of millions of pounds, and achieve sustained revenue growth.
Since retiring from paid employment in 2023, Laurence has focused his leadership skills on the non-profit sector. He currently serves as the Chair of Trustees for the Island Charity and as a Non-Exec Director for BEF, where he applies his commercial acumen and passion for community to guide organizational success.

Paul Devlin

Treasurer

Paul joined The Island initially as a volunteer in 2022, then became Treasurer and Trustee in December 2023, before being appointed Interim Chief Executive Officer in May 2025.Paul is a keen advocate for young people, having previously mentored young people in a voluntary capacity and has broad experience of managing organisations in different stages of their evolution, including large scale construction projects.

Paul is the father of two adult children, having been married for 34 years, a keen cook and a dog lover, with a scatty Lurcher called Bear, who loves walks across the fields.

Elly Fiorentini

Trustee

James Bishop

Trustee

Lee Vincent

Trustee