Hello from the new Community Support Administrator

Hello,

My name is Rob Young and I am delighted to be the new Community Support Administrator at Lapidus. It is a wonderful organisation and I will do all I can to promote it.

I have spent many happy years in administration. Then, one day, I was hit by a car. I spent nine months in plaster, so to pass the time, I started to write. It changed my life.

I spent the next 20 years being commissioned to write for the UK’s biggest film, TV and theatre companies including the BBC, Channel 4, Sony, Aardman, Working Title and the National Theatre. I wrote everything from a Christina Ricci movie to a gay play in a football stadium. I created first online play for the Royal Shakespeare Company and had 100 of my poems built into the pavements of Kent. For someone who left home with the modest ambition of ‘owning a coloured telly’, it felt like one long over-achievement, with a large dollop of imposter syndrome.

Then, one day, I thought, “Why am I doing this?” because if I’m still tapdancing for applause after all these years, then I’m nothing more than a stage school brat. So, I started using my skills to help people instead.

As a former BAFTA Screenplay Judge, I have helped thousands of writers find their voice. As a Faculty Associate of NHS Research North West, I have spent the past 8 years helping NHS and Social Care leaders communicate in a way that is warm, welcoming, and accessible to all. I was the Inaugural Patron of the first arts festival in England to be run by an NHS Trust, and part of the Wellcome Trust Team that won the Inaugural Calouste Gulbenkian award, for a project in which Disabled people led their own research. I have worked with every stratum of society from Hollywood stars to the homeless, terminally ill lung patients to young Cancer survivors.

It is this combination of writing and wellbeing that led me to Lapidus, as a natural axis point. I think the work you do is terrific. It is a flag that I'm proud to wave.

That’s it! I look forward to working with you and if I can help in any way, just ask.

Rob Young

Community Support Administrator

This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.

https://robyoung.info

p.s. I recently co-wrote a series of free wellbeing guides for the Elizabeth Casson Trust, that you’re very welcome to download. https://elizabethcasson.org.uk/support-development/newly-qualified-ot-resources/