Meet the team

I would like to do things that benefit young people. Of course they sometimes ask me what I know about it. Well, very much. I use my experience to help the boys. I encourage them to learn from my mistakes. That mainly works with the younger participants, the older boys know from experience that they must seize opportunities with both hands. I am always honest. "Boy, this is going to be a tough year. You have to fight to get out of this valley. But we will stand by your side and help you through this phase." The result has been succesful. I am proud of the success, the growth and our teams both in Holland and the UK. We have created something beautiful and sustainable. Once you are part of Project TurnOver, you are part of our family and we are there for you. I have participants who still call me regularly from 7 years ago when they were on our programme.

It was a real challenge. We started as a job coach company and are now looking at a fully-fledged and serious youth and participation organisation that counts in the industry. I am very proud of our young people and our team and I feel very involved with this target group. Together we achieve the best results.

After spending the last 17 years leading successful sales and service teams in Banking, I took an amazing opportunity to bring two of my passions together – Charitable causes and Rugby, I have been involved in Rugby from the age of 6 and now lead a team of volunteers as Chairman of Staines Rugby Club. I joined the TurnOver family in October 2019 as the UK Programme Director, and haven’t looked back since. The change in my work environment has had a huge impact on my mental and physical health, which has resulted in me being more involved with my family and my other voluntary work that I do in the rugby community. Most rewarding of all is seeing the work you do actually having an impact on someone’s life and for your time and effort to actually have a meaning. Having now successfully completed our first cohort the biggest impact for me is seeing the change in the young men that we have been working with, seeing them go from very quiet and contained individuals to a cohesive team that works hard together and are able to have fun and keep a smile on their face whilst doing it. The highlight for me so far in my time with TurnOver is seeing us reward 3 of our first cohort with TurnOver Legend status – the amount of self control and commitment needed from these three individuals was inspiring to watch and they all truly deserved this award. I look forward to helping more young people to turn their lives around and making more TurnOver Legends to join our family.

I am a father of three and have be playing rugby for the last 33 years at Staines RFC. I was a Prison Officer at HMP/YOI Feltham for 17 years and have worked in hospitality in F1 for a few years, and am now the Head Coach for TurnOver UK. I have a passion for helping people and through my years in the prison system I have seen that there is a need for more 'through the gate' help for young men and women. We, as a country, lock them up and then leave them to their own devices and wonder why they are back in prison, when spending some time and effort on them is all most young people need. This is what drives me to work with young people who are on their 'last chance' or who may need to learn in a different way.

Rugby has had a huge influence on my life and my heritage is tightly intertwined with the sport. My grandmother was instrumental in building the first rugby club in our little hometown in South Africa where my father and many family members played. As a community we collectively helped to host teams and fundraise through the club to help the local community where we could. My love of the sport and the way that for many, a rugby club becomes your "second home" and how your newfound "family" pulls together to help each other as they did at my granny's club is something that I have always loved being a part of. I married a rugby player who played 10 seasons with Harlequins and 2 with Saracens and our kids were taken to games when they were weeks old, they too both play rugby. My involvement with Project TurnOver happened through a rugby contact. I was sadly at a funeral of a friend and there was a sea of rugby club members there in support the family and I got chatting to Alex White. Alex works for Virtual Clarity and they were funding the set-up of Project TurnOver in the UK. Alex spoke to me at length about the project and how it has helped over 700 people to change the direction of their lives from being in prison, living on the streets, young and vulnerable children, all through the principals of rugby and this really struck a chord. Alex explained they were looking for like-minded people to get the project up and running. The rest is history... It has been a great privilege setting up such a worthwhile cause in the UK to mimic the huge success in the Netherlands. To adapt to the young people's needs in the UK we have successfully incorporated Project TurnOver's core principals. Unexpected upside: I was not quite prepared for the way the participants on our course quickly became such a big part of my heart and how we are all so invested in the success of their future.