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Founder and CEO
Kate is the wonderfully brave and innovative Founder of The SAND Project. Energetic, passionate and tenacious, Kate loves to spend her day to day life finding the joy and brilliance in everyone and helping them turn it into a business (basically, she’s the Lord Sugar of Worthing Town Centre).
It is Kate’s job to identify the talents of the trainees and the things they love doing (even if they don’t always know it themselves), then turn it into a personalised course that prepares them for a job they love. She also helps to make sure Sand develops as many enterprises as possible to provide relevant work training and potential paid work for the trainees.
SAND would not be here if it wasn’t for Kate. Thanks to her, we have a huge list of accomplishments, with Kate’s favourite being when she and the team convince someone to become part of the SAND family.
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Managing Director
Marita is our smart, loyal and awesome Managing Director, the one who’s always there to save the day.
As the sandbag to Kate’s helium balloon, Marita ensures that The SAND Project runs smoothly on a day to day basis, whilst supporting all trainees and facilitators, by making sure they have everything they need to get the most out of their work.
There are many things that Marita is proud of, from the positive relationships made at SAND – helping trainees to overcome phobias, manage emotions and foster relationships – to setting up, building and continuing to grow a college which supports young people to stride towards independence.
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Head of Education
Rachel is our wonderfully enthusiastic Head of Education at SAND. Her role involves developing and overseeing the quality of education at all college sites, making sure the best possible outcome is given to our trainees.
Thoughtful, pragmatic, and enthusiastic, Rachel uses these awesome qualities to work closely with the careers and enterprise teams, supporting meaningful learning that leads to employment for the trainees.
Having only just started at The SAND Project, it feels like Rachel has been part of the SAND family since the very beginning. Rachel absolutely loves the freedom to think about what will make a difference to our young people’s lives, and the opportunity to get on and do it. She also really appreciates everyone’s attitude of finding a way to make things work, rather than thinking of barriers and issues, then giving up.
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Pastoral Lead
Beki is our Head of Pastoral and Transition, her role is to guide and support the trainees as they transition into our college, move through the college and ultimately leave to go out into the world of work and independence.
Joyful, funny and supportive, Beki always comes into SAND with a wonderful sense of energy and love of learning, whilst also making sure she is adaptable to meet the needs of the many trainees. Her reliability and positive attitude are a great influence on the young people at SAND, which helps her to engage them with the wider world. She also works very closely with all of our SAND families to ensure that everyone is working together for the good of our trainees.
Beki has always loved the quote “Be the change you want to see in the world”, and working at Sand helps her to feel an essential part of that change!
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Lead Facilitator, SLT
Isaac is an easy-going and fun-loving bloke, who always has a dad joke up his sleeve – when asked what fruit he would be, his answer was: “I would be a cherry, because I cherry-ish every day.” He may be cringe, but this is what makes him one of our most beloved facilitators.
In his role, Isaac delivers the multimedia, woodwork and café takeover pathways with his humour, wonderful support and sheer brilliance, providing the Trainees with amazing opportunities to be creative and social, whilst developing the necessary skills, knowledge and confidence for each pathway.
Isaac has expressed a lot of love for SAND, for being a friendly and supportive environment, for the excitement of different things happening every day and for giving him the responsibility to help young people be brilliant at doing the things they enjoy.
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Lead Facilitator, SLT
Lottie is a dynamic superstar, with a creative and energetic approach to the many tasks set by The SAND Project, which makes her perfect for leading Design, Hospitality, Gardening, and Life and Living, as well as being a key part of the Transition team. Did we mention she’s a dynamic superstar?!
She has an outstanding talent for interior design (she should really go on ‘Interior Design Masters with Alan Carr’!), but her talents also shine within her other sessions, showcasing her ambition to work with the Trainees to make a room, space or environment feel positive, calm, inspiring or all of these things – all of which she has expressed is essential for the mental wellbeing of everyone. Wellbeing is very much at the core of her approach to the sessions.
Lottie is constantly proud of the trainees for the effort they put into their pathways, for trying new things and for being open to change and growth. And we’re proud of Lottie for her awesome work in bringing out the best in our Trainees.
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Lead Facilitator, SLT
Carol runs our East Toast Cafe working with trainees who prefer smaller work environments and more focused support.
She is a caring, loyal and funny facilitator who knows how to inspire, which is absolutely brilliant – especially as she and the trainees are working really hard to run a café from the Hub site on Lyndhurst road.
Carol enjoys seeing the trainees’ determination and superb teamwork during their many daily tasks running East Toast Café. She is a firm believer in the ability of all young people to succeed and in the creative ways which staff will approach learning and development to make things work for the individual.
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Support Facilitator
Once a trainee, now a Support Facilitator at SAND, Libby’s role can be described as a ‘jack-of-all-trades’. They work directly with the trainees, whilst also occasionally tasked with creating accessible learning resources and social media content for East Toast café – due to their graphic design & media background.
They have resilience like no other, they’re very attentive and their compassion comforts and brings out the best in the trainees, which is great for when they work closely with them to find and develop key skills.
Supporting the journeys of the trainees has been an absolute pleasure for Libby, seeing their progress and confidence grow is one of their favourite parts of the job.
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Community Engagement Lead
Katie is our dependable, kind and supportive Community and Work Engagement Lead, who engages the trainees in work visits and work experiences. She is a bright ray of sunshine at The SAND Project, who enjoys finding the strengths and passions within our young people, enabling them to grow in confidence and find a pathway in life that they can enjoy.
Katie’s highlight of her role is seeing the growth of a trainee when they attend a work placement and return feeling so proud of themselves. She feels honoured to be working with such amazing young people and them trusting her to take them on a journey of finding their pathway in work life. Katie is proud to be part of the SAND team and feels privileged to work in such a creative and innovative way.
“No day is the same, and I am always learning from our incredible trainees” – Katie Shepherd
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Facilitator
Dee is our superb and beautifully creative art facilitator. She is a versatile queen within the art world, who has cemented herself as a key member of the team – who we can always rely on to do an amazing job.
Her aim is to nurture experimentation and new ideas among the trainees, introducing them to a wide range of different mediums – which will give each and every young person the opportunity to experiment with their creativity and gain confidence.
To be a part of The SAND Project, an amazing enterprise that gives trainees such a fantastic environment to learn entrepreneurial skills, is truly wonderful to Dee. And seeing our young people really happy and engaging with Dee has been absolutely amazing.
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Facilitator
Martyn is a fun, creative and inspiring member of staff at The SAND Project, which makes him perfect for the role of Photography Facilitator.
The ultimate goal of Martyn is to teach the Trainees to take photographs in a range of environments, giving them the skills and confidence to capture quality pictures, whilst also encouraging them to push the boat out with experimentation and find their unique style, so that they can take what they’ve learnt and carry on with their passion for photography either as a hobby or paid work.
Martyn has expressed how blessed he feels to be part of SAND, and finds it a wonderfully caring and supportive hub of excitement and creativity, where no two days are ever the same.
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Support Facilitator
Calum is loyal and kind, he has a real zest for life, with a strong faith and optimism – which shines through in his role as a Support Facilitator.
Being on the autistic spectrum himself, Calum uses his experiences (as well as his friendly and creative personality) to inspire all the trainees at SAND to believe that they can achieve anything they put their minds to.
It’s clear that Calum is having the time of his life, from organising Fun Time Thursday to leading work skills activities every morning. Seeing the trainees develop their confidence and skills is a real highlight for Calum and he can’t wait to see what the future holds for The SAND Project.
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Lead Facilitator
Treena is our fun and caring facilitator who supports the trainees in the running of Bay Café, and she does it all with sheer brilliance!
What Treena loves most about working at SAND is how her café team make her really proud on a daily basis. They bring enormous happiness to Treena’s life, even on the tricky days there is always someone that makes her smile.
Treena is a huge part of the success behind Bay Café. She brings so much joy, laughter and love to all the trainees, facilitators and customers. There is never a dull day with our loveable Treena.
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Premises Manager and Admin support
Taya is our marvellous PA and Premises Coordinator. Her role is super varied, as she looks after and coordinates the premises’ and provides admin support for Marita and Kate. Her compassion and loyalty to The SAND Project is magic, as it results in some incredible work that supports all the facilitators.
One of the highlights for Taya is the times we spend together as a whole team, because it makes her feel a part of something really special. This and the trainees, who make her laugh on a daily basis.
Taya claims that she could never manage the responsibility of being a superhero, but the reality is that she is our superhero. SAND would not function without the amazing Taya.
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Kitchen Manager
Becky is the Kitchen Manager at The SAND Project, and joint Cafe Manager of Bay Cafe. She works with the trainees to provide the food for the cafe as well as bakes to East Toast Cafe and local companies (like HISBE and Worthing Theatres). She also works with the trainees to develop and cook recipes for our frozen ready meal range, SAND FROZEN.
Creative, logical and kind, Becky is always up for a new challenge and she always delivers on every level. Once, she was given a mass catering challenge to provide a range of frozen meals to a rugby club for six of their games!
Having the opportunity and freedom to experiment and trial new recipes has been a real highlight for Becky, as well as helping the trainees to successfully make seven standing gingerbread houses.
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Lead Facilitator
Ellie is our awesome Drama Skills Practitioner, who inspires and encourages Trainees within a creative space, boosting their confidence and enabling their magnificent talents to shine.
Using her passion from the theatrical world, Ellie works closely with the Trainees to explore games and activities routed in theatre, which will not only help those interested in drama, but will also help others gain keys skills required for the working world (e.g. presentation, positivity in the workplace, etc…)
Ellie’s always sparkling with great enthusiasm and life, which makes her the perfect fit for SAND. She has enjoyed meeting all the different people at SAND, learning so much from them, and we can’t wait to see our young people develop thanks to the talents of this vibrant star.
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Support Facilitator
Ellie is one the Support Facilitators at SAND. She helps the Facilitators set up the sessions, and supports the Trainees wherever she’s needed.
Ellie really shines within the workspace! She is our sunlight, someone who brings a lot of warmth, love and joy to our lives. She uses her wonderful sense of humour and passion to bring out the best in our Trainees, who are really happy and having lots of fun working with Ellie.
Ellie has stated that the staff’s love for the college and their care for our young people’s futures is her highlight. She feels honoured to work at SAND. And we feel honoured to have Ellie in the team!
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Lead Facilitator
Nicki is an extraordinary, multi-talented Facilitator, who uses her fantastic creativity, fun, energy and kindness to support and teach our Trainees.
Her talents are on full display within the woodwork, retail and multimedia sessions, as well as her love for working creatively with the Trainees, helping them to learn new and meaningful skills. We canot wait to see how she develops our new retail premises next to East Toast cafe.
Even though Nicki has only just joined the team, it already feels like she has been a big part of the SAND family for a long time, and that’s because of how amazing her skills and passion for helping our young people are. We are so looking forward to creating many memories with Nicki!
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Lead Facilitator
Jo is a loving, caring and welcoming facilitator who leads Creative Print. She gives lots of one-to-ones on screen-printing (especially with our art trainees), and does Life and Living sessions about healthy relationships.
Honest, loyal and fantastic, you can always expect Jo to deliver the goods, whether that’s fully leading a session or working with an individual to realise and develop their amazing skills and talents.
A real highlight for Jo is how she has been made to feel welcome and an important part of the SAND team, and it has been a highlight for us to have Jo as an essential part of the team.
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Lead Facilitator
Charlie is our Creative Writing and Sewing Facilitator, who helps the Trainees to explore, experiment and develop a range of skills to help unlock our young peoples’ inner creative geniuses, taking their imaginations to exciting and wonderful places.
The work Charlie does with the Trainees is incredible, as she gets them to focus and be open to the many opportunities that their writing and/or sewing talents can give them, e.g. copywriting, promotional work, reporting, journalism, being an author, clothing manufacturers, apprenticeships in tailoring, etc…
There is a marvellous atmosphere at SAND, a buzz of creativity and fabulous support, which Charlie has picked up on and has expressed as her favourite part of working at The SAND Project.
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Creative Lead
Leigh is our beautifully friendly and fantastic Creative Lead. She is responsible for observing, understanding and visually interpreting everything at The SAND Project. Her first exciting task was to rebrand SAND and create a new logo, visual identity and social media presence (and she did a phenomenal job!).
Designing graphics to support our educational and enterprise resources is a key part of Leigh’s role, as well as create packaging and design for the trainee enterprises. Leigh always gets an amazing buzz whenever she nails a design brief for Kate or Marita, the moment she showed Kate her logo idea for Packs Bags & Leaves was a huge highlight!
The joy of SAND is what Leigh loves the most about working with us. The joy from everyone in the teaching team, the support, the trainees and so on. She feels very lucky to work in such a wonderful environment.
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Attendance Officer and Admin Support
Aleisha is our Admissions Officer and Admin Assistant to the Pastoral and Transition team, registering all the Trainees every morning and assisting with all admin tasks relating to the team and the college.
There’s always a huge amount of fun and positive energy from Aleisha, even when she has a lot of work and deadlines to meet, she comes in like a ray of sunshine and brightens the place up with her wonderful joy and enthusiasm.
Aleisha has enjoyed the enriching and humble environment at SAND, knowing that what she and the rest of the staff do is having an impact and making a difference to our young people’s lives, which she finds so personally rewarding at the same time!
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