Meet the Team

Allen O’Keefe

Support Staff

Alan Heads up our Wednesday club and works in our charity shop for our Workskills service but this is just the tip of the iceberg, he also helps in our youth and bespoke service, our adult social programme, as well as our supported living service!! Another busy week for Alan.

Amanda Wright

Senior Support Development Worker

After spending nearly ten years as a child care officer and teaching assistant, Amanda joined our Bespoke and Adult leisure services bringing with her a sense of fun and excitement to every event. Before working with children Amanda spent many years working as a travel agent and is now our Adult leisure holiday lead.

Andy Lee

Gardening Lead

Andy trained in amenity horticulture at Easton College, he then was a self-employed gardener for a short while. Andy returned to Easton college as a horticultural technician, as part of this work he worked with a variety of client groups. He then moved on to a charity similar to About with Friends, gaining experience working with learning difficulties. After 13 years Andy was ready for a new challenge and an opportunity became available at About with Friends in the Youth and Bespoke area. Andy then transferred to the Workskills department when a position a lead gardener came up.

Beverly Hymas

Bespoke Support Staff

Bev has come from a nursing back ground but re-trained as a teaching assistant. She then worked at Woodfields school and realised she had a love of working with young people with complex needs and so she applied to AWF and is now a key part of our Bespoke team.

Carmel Leyland

Charity Shop Lead

Carmel had spent many successful years owning her own care home as well as a restaurant. She decided to take things a little easier and sold the restaurant and started volunteering for the Salvation Army charity shop, after 2 years there she took on our own charity shop in Cromer.

Catherine Seaward

Outreach Senior Support Staff

Catherine joined us five years ago, starting as bank worker and is now Senior Support Worker in the outreach team.  Previously Catherine had worked for different care companies working in residential care homes and supported living services. She puts her NVQ level 3 In Health and Social Care to very good use supporting our members.

David Register

Finance Manager

After many years in commercial finance, David became our Finance Manager as well as keeping a tight hold of the Charities’ finances you will regularly find him helping out in our lunch club or delivering a buffet for our catering team. If the job involves money or food David won’t be far away.

Elliott Large

Catering Support Staff

Studied BSC Nursing (Mental-Hea1th) at Anglia Ruskin University and gained a Higher Education Certificate in Applied Health Studies. Deciding to have a change of career he became the Commis Chef at a local fine dining eatery in Norfolk and was a volunteer at AWF in his spare time. But how could he combine his love of food with his passion for working with people with learning difficulties? Easy he joined our catering team and has been an inspiration to all the wonderful things they now produce.

Georgia Atkins

Workskills Support Staff

After spending two years as a residential support worker for adults with challenging behaviour, she decided to develop her experience and knowledge of care and joined AWF as an apprentice. She is not only a key member of the team but is also working hard towards her level 3 in health and social care.

Gina Godwin-Harmer

Deputy Adult Leisure Manager

After spending nearly ten years working with adults and young people with learning disabilities and challenging behaviour across a range of different residential homes and day centres, Gina gained her level 3 diploma in Health and Social Care. She joined about with friends in 2015 as a support worker for work skills and progress to her current position of lead support worker for adult social activities which she loves doing and gets a great deal of satisfaction out of organising exciting events and days out for all our members to enjoy.

Hannah Pennington

Workskills Manager

Hannah joined us from “Jeesal” as Deputy Workskills Manager, her vast experience in support care has had a positive effect on all areas of our service. With her extensive training in Mental Health-Autism and person centred planning, our service has gone from strength to strength with new ventures being added to our range of services regularly.

Jeanette Plumley

Catering Support Staff

As a support co-ordinator for Victory housing Jeanette provided a safe and caring environment for her residents. This caring approach is evident in the support she gives our members in our catering department from teaching them to make edible rose petals to making the wedding cake for our CEO she seems to bring a new skill to work every week.

Julie Ison

Support Worker

After spending 20 yrs as a carer for her late husband, Julie continued to work as a home career. She gained experience of dementia patients while working at Halsey House Cromer. To further her knowledge and experience she joined AWF and finds daily inspiration from working with our members.

Karen Funnell

Adult Leisure Deputy Manager

Katie Tuynman

Volunteer Co-Ordinator

After studying Media, Film, Photography and Drama at Paston College, Katie moved to London to study and received a BAHons in Theatre, Drama and Performance Studies. She later moved back to Norfolk working her way to duty and general manager at many different pubs and hotels around Norfolk.
Katie had always wanted to teach people with learning difficulties so made the leap to a change of career and started working at Hall School. Later moving onto Woodfields School and then About with Friends; starting as a Support Bespoke worker before her current role as Volunteer Co-Ordinator

Katie Wade

Outreach Manager

Katie has had experience both in Health and Social care.
8 years working for the NHS as an Assistant practitioner after completing an FDSC in health and social science graduating in 2014 and 3 years working at Sidestrand Hall School as a residential childcare officer.
Katie is a true Yorkshire girl. She is very bubbly bringing lots of fun and positivity within her workplace.

Laura Smith

HR

After 12 years in Construction recruitment both in Norfolk and Cambridgeshire Laura took 5 years out to raise her 3 young children. After relocating back to Norfolk, she took a part time post with About with Friends as our HR Administrator, she is now an integral part of our strong back office team managing and overseeing our staff recruitment processes.

Lesley Osborne

Admin Support

Lesley worked for Natwest Bank for 33 years before joining us, she worked locally in Holt, Sheringham and in the last 15 years, the Cromer Branch as a Customer Service Advisor. She currently lives in Cromer, is married and has a daughter, Bryony.

Matt McMahon

Acting Workskills Manager

Matt has many years experience working with adults with learning difficulties in farming, gardening, woodwork and IT. He enjoys a varied workload at About With Friends covering all aspects of Workskills, from gardening and catering to supporting our members in the events and presentation team.

Melanie Minns

Workskills Administrator

Mel started at the beginning of the year and is really enjoying the job so far. In her own words ‘the team and the members have been friendly and welcoming and each day is so different from the next.’
She came from a background of horticultural therapy having ran garden centres staffed by adults with learning disabilities, and even had a period of time having fun doing garden makeovers for the BBC. In her earlier career she worked as a freelance photographer and stylist and as a learning support assistant at further education venues in these subjects.
For the last few years she has had administration jobs within the NHS and worked part time gardening, keeping her interest in horticulture going. She is thrilled to work alongside adults with learning disabilities again and has met some fantastic people.

Nicola Cummins

Workskills Administrator

Nicola has worked for most of her career in the voluntary sector including ten years as Marketing Officer at  Break Charity, six years as Volunteer Co-ordinator at Priscilla Bacon Lodge Hospice and seven years as Administrator for the National Trust on the Isle of Wight. Nicola volunteered for AWF in an admin/fundraising role in 2016 and subsequently joined the staff team as Workskills Administrator in January 2017. She says she has worked alongside some amazing, inspiring people over the years – members, patients, families, carers and colleagues and feels very lucky to continue this at AWF.

Rob Swann

Workskills Support Staff

Rob has brought with him over 20 years experience gained in the care industry from working with children in residential care to fostering in his own home. Rob has had a wide and diverse knowledge of care that he puts to great use everyday with our members in workskills.

Sarah Bindley

Café Lead

With over 10 years experience in catering Sarah Joined us from a special needs school where she held the position of catering manager. She now works across the whole charity from preparing meals for our cafe customers to supporting our members in Work Skills.

Su Lee

Sue started volunteering over 9 years ago which soon led to her becoming our Volunteer Co-ordinator working hard to find other volunteers to join and support our members both in working situations and social fun experiences. Sue enjoys helping our members try new things, go to new places and grow in confidence making new friends along the way.

Tim Funnell

Gardening Support Staff

After spending many years in retail sales Tim joined AWF as a general bank support worker. During this time he soon built a strong rapport with our gardening members and when an opportunity came along to join our Gardening team full time he was our first choice.

Tom Reading

Support Co-Ordinator

Tom joined us from residential care but brought with him a vast range of skills and experience from his years as a teacher, to time he spent as a fine cabinet maker and boat builder. As Workskills support co-ordinator, Tom is here, there and everywhere, supporting our catering, café, gardening and production members and staff. In addition to all this he also leads on our basic Maths and English class for our members.