Lloyd Greenland, The Venny’s Assistant Director of Community Engagement and Play, has spent a large part of his life at the Venny. First as a service user and now as a valued and popular staff member.
Lloyd vividly remembers his first visit to The Venny. He’d walked down from the Flemington housing estate where he lived with a group of older kids on the promise of going to a fun place where kids could hang out and play. “When we got there, my friends left me and told me I was too young to play. I got really upset”, he says. Luckily one of the staff (he thinks it was David Kutcher) came to his rescue and invited him to play.
Lloyd soon became a regular at The Venny and has many happy childhood memories from that time. Dancing on the pool table at 11pm when he was 10 years old at a Venny sleepover and then falling asleep under the pool table shortly afterwards. Teaching himself to do a back-flip on the trampoline. “I practiced for two years before I got it and felt such a huge sense of achievement”, he says. Today Lloyd teaches the kids how to do backflips.
At the age of 17 Lloyd was offered the role of Youth Mentor at The Venny. “I was probably only three years out of using the service myself and was excited to be trusted to do that role”, he says.
Lloyd really enjoyed the role and found he had a natural rapport with kids which led him to study youth work. More recently he has completed both Foundation and Senior Practitioner levels of accredited Playwork training.
The strengths that Lloyd brings to this work are imbedded in his lived experience. He understands the specific challenges faced by children growing up in public housing and the struggles related to poverty and intergenerational trauma. He brings a determination to overcome perceived limits and to assist kids to access joy, freedom and to shine and be at their best
So Lloyd, what do you love most about your job? “I love just hanging out with kids. It’s a privilege to witness and be welcomed into their play and lives.”
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