Luke O'Keefe - Director
In founding Angling4Education in 2006, Luke fulfilled his long-held dream of developing a highly professional and innovative outdoor education provider, geared towards meeting the needs of so-called “hard to reach” groups.
“I don’t believe in the term hard to reach. What it often reflects is the youth field being unwilling or unable to be flexible and creative enough to engage groups of children and young people who do not respond to institutional or adult models of intervention”.
Luke graduated from Sussex University with a BA Degree in Development Studies and has a 1st class honours in Youth Work from Brighton University. The values and ethics of Youth Work remain central to all his professional practice and aspirations for the organisation.
During his 12 years in the youth field, Luke has worked with some of the most disadvantaged, vulnerable and challenging groups of young people, working as:
• Crime Prevention Officer for Eastbourne Borough Council
• Sports and Activities Manager for West Sussex Youth Offending Service
• Youth Worker for West Sussex Youth Support and Development Service
• Trainer for Youth Force (a private provider specialising in Youth Work and Apprenticeships)
• As well as coordinating numerous award winning youth intervention programmes.
Luke’s focus in all these posts has been the key role outdoor education can have in supporting a wide range of children and young people, who often aren’t experiencing success in other settings or other parts of their lives. So it was a natural progression to make the leap and set up Angling4Education.
Today he runs many of the courses and oversees the development and tailoring of programmes. Luke is a keen angler and a true outdoors enthusiast, who loves to travel. He’s been lucky enough to combine these passions and has fished all over the world.