Alasdair Offin

Alasdair is Youth Learning Service Officer at South Lanarkshire Council. His career in CLD began in 1972 when he spotted an advertisement for a Trainee/Assistant Community Centre Warden; he was looking for a new challenge and thought it sounded interesting. Many years later, he still finds working in the CLD sector very rewarding. While the newspaper advertisement prompted his interest, the positive experiences he has had with communities and colleagues have inspired him to stay.

He believes that CLD supports people to articulate their needs and aspirations and to develop the skills and knowledge they need to be effective members of their communities. Without it many individuals, particularly those who left school with few or no formal qualifications, would have been unable to have made the positive impacts they have on their own lives and the communities in which they live.

Alasdair is a long standing advocate of a Standards Council for CLD; he has argued the case for it since researching and writing an essay on the subject of the professionalisation of Youth and Community Workers in 1975. He believes that, as it is a profession, CLD needs a body that supports and regulates the performance and behaviour of those who work in the field and promotes the interests of CLD to wider audiences – for example national and local governments.