Island Games star in new sports development role

ISLAND Games high-jumper Laurel Garfield is the island's first community sports development officer, a new role created by the Guernsey Sports Commission. Funded with the support of the Lloyds TSB Foundation for the Channel Islands, her primary responsibility will be to design and implement a programme to enhance social inclusion for disadvantaged young people through sport and health-related activities.

Locally educated at La Mare de Carteret Primary and the Grammar School, Miss Garfield went on to Bath University where she studied sports and exercise science.

She spent a year travelling and working in New Zealand, Australia and Fiji before joining Surrey Police as a police community support officer.

Based in Guildford, she worked within the community helping disadvantaged youths and dealing with anti-social behaviour and low-level crime.

She moved back to Guernsey earlier this year where she heard about the role of community sports development officer.

'With her experience at Surrey Police and the projects she worked on, Laurel was perfect for the role,' said Susie Farnon, chief executive of the Guernsey Sports Commission.

'The primary aim of the role is to encourage youngsters, in particular those who are for whatever reason disaffected or disadvantaged, to participate in sports activities and to engage them in education, training and ultimately employment,' she said.

'In short, open the door of opportunity for these young people to learn and develop through sport.'

In her new role the keen athlete will be targeting 11 to 19-year-olds with a range of schemes and initiatives.

She has already been undertaking some outreach work at Les Genats with the National Children's Home (NCH) and is currently liaising with Youth Services, the Youth Justice Board, Education Department, Home Department, Police, College of Further Education, Culture and Leisure, Drug and Alcohol Strategy Group as well as NCH on how to best deliver sport to the targeted youth group.

In November, she will be attending a course which will enable her to tutor courses in Guernsey to train up people to become community sports leaders and deliver sport in their own environments.

'This will make our outreach work more sustainable and allow us to work with youths from other areas beyond Les Genats,' said the new officer.

'We will be looking for some volunteers to come forward to help us with this, so we would be keen to hear from anyone who thinks they would be able to interact with and help youths develop through sport,' she added.

For further information on the activities, or if you wish to find out about becoming a Community Sports Leader, please contact Laurel on laurel.garfield@gsysportscom.gov.gg.