Meet the team

 

All our staff are fully trained in the Social Model of Disability and share our values on Social Justice and Human Equality.

 

Being based in a town with a strong BAME community has made it important for us to ensure that our staff are trained to be ‘culturally competent’ with regards to differences between cultural customs and faith traditions, as well as being fully appreciative of the significant impact that beliefs and practices have on everyday life.

 

We conscientiously match key staff members with Partners through a compatibility assessment which considers aspects such as gender, personality, background, interests and age. Our objective is for Partners and staff to build a healthy relationship based on equality, friendship and support.

 

 

Rafik is a qualified teacher who worked for many years in Blackburn College’s learning support department which is renowned for its innovative and inclusive philosophy. He is a qualified tutor with a first class degree in Disability Studies, within which he produced a ground-breaking dissertation examining the Islamic Perspective on Disability.

 

Yalina is a Level 3 BSL communicator and has worked with the Deaf community in Blackburn for over a decade. Alongside her role as a family-worker for the East Lanc’s Deaf Society, she initiated and delivered a number of extra-curricular educational programmes in BSL, so people with hearing impairments could access vital knowledge relating to their culture, faith traditions and customs which are often learnt in an inaccessible format.