Name:  
Mick Conroy

Job Title:
Head of Department: Facilitation, Training & Quality Standards

e-mail: 
mickconroy@canllaw-online.com

Contact no: 
07966 171569

What I do at Canllaw Online:
I oversee the work of a team of 3 Credu facilitators, who visit each of the 112 Credu Digilabs across Wales to offer support and guidance. I am also responsible for consultation work with any youth project that wishes to set up an Information Service for young people under the Canllaw Online Info-Outlets Scheme. I deliver accredited Youth Information Work training to youth services and partner organisations that join the Info-Outlet scheme and this helps them work towards the Canllaw Online Quality Mark which we have established as a benchmark for good practice in delivering information to young people. I am also responsible for making the Tea in the office and am 7th reserve on the Welsh Translation team.

Why I’m the best person for this job:
Because the Canllaw Board said I was!! Although on a serious note my job has changed greatly since I started in 2000 and our recent projects have really brought use of new technologies into youth information work. This increase in focus on high tec perhaps means that I may not be the best person for the job!! However, I feel that 20 years experience of working face-to-face with young people in the statutory and voluntary youth sector has meant that I have developed an `informed instinct` into what will and won’t work with young people although I have to say that with more and more management responsibilities my time spent with young people is sadly limited now. However, if you scratch my skin hard enough you will find a youth worker under there trying to get out! Maybe that’s why I have put weight on!

Why Canllaw Online and information for young people:
Well, to steal a line from Chesney Hawkes – “They are the ONE and ONLY!!” organisation capable of delivering quality information services to young people and those that work with them. I was involved from 1997 in trying to re-establish the original Canllaw Online project formed in 1985. It was a privilege to be a part of the national team that lobbied the then newly formed Welsh Assembly Government.

What I did before Canllaw Online:
Started as a teacher in 1986 after leaving a 2 year Union post in college. I then quickly realised that the education system was not the place to help the youngsters that I saw needed the most support. In 1989 I moved to the youth service and realised that a good youth work when combined with quality youth information services can make a real impact on the progress made by young people. In 1996 I then moved into the voluntary sector & helped to set up the successful Penarth Information Shop for the next 3 years before moving to Canllaw Online to face the challenge of developing youth information work on a national level.

What I want to do, but haven’t done yet:
Make the tea in the office!!!  It may sound crazy but it’s to have a business selling doughnuts on beaches (100% customer satisfaction at last!!!).
On a professional level I would like to establish the first OFSTED team of 16 year olds that will inspect schools from a young person’s perspective.
I would also like to play for Liverpool FC if this is a sort of “Jim will fix it “
 
What I wanted to be when I was little:
Big.

Favourite holiday spot:
Anywhere outside Liverpool but I do have a soft spot for Whitesands beach, St David’s, Pembrokeshire.

Favourite dish:
Anything that ends in Pie.

Favourite cartoon character:
Wily Coyote – just for his perseverance and as a role model in finding new ways to get a bird. I would love him to just once get his hands round Road Runner’s neck and say “now “Beep Beep” you git”!

Favourite Album:
Sergeant Pepper – The Beatles (predictable, sorry!).

Favourite Music Artist:
Tough one! Between The Beatles and Leonard Cohen and would have to go for old Leonard as he cheers me up!

Favourite Book:
The Diceman by Luke Rhinehart (taught me about the randomness of life and fate…don’t read it - it will change you and you will want to live like he did!).  I did it once and ended up on holiday camping in Morecambe!!

Favourite Film: 
On the Waterfront with Marlon Brando (because I coulda been somebody too!)

Any weird phobias?  
Don’t like wet cutlery – can’t touch the stuff!  Oh and those china doll things that look like mini people.

What I would put in room 101:
World Famine & Poverty (because then there wouldn’t be any), apart from those there’s those Teasmaids (wake you up an hour before you want to), bread-making machines (who has ever used one more than once?), VIP areas in night clubs that don’t get anybody famous in (what’s all that about!) and finally if there is any room left I would like to pull the trapdoor into room 101 on every domestic cat in the known and unknown universe.

The opinions stated in this interview belong to the interviewee and do not necessarily represent the opinions of Canllaw Online.