My husband, Bob Casey, who has died of sepsis aged 65, was a youth worker who spent most of his life working with disadvantaged young people in inner city and rural areas of Britain.
The eldest of three children of Enid (nee Bradshaw), a ward clerk at the Royal Preston hospital, and Jim Casey, a messenger for what is now NatWest Bank, Bob was born and grew up in Preston, Lancashire. He served an apprenticeship at British Aerospace and worked there as an engineer before leaving in the early 1980s to test his vocation to the priesthood at Ushaw College, Durham. Following five years in the seminary, he left before ordination to train instead as a youth and community worker in London.
Bob was committed to youth work and had great drive, with a talent for engaging difficult-to-reach young people. He worked with challenging behaviour in a manner that meant young people were not excluded from activities and he encouraged the teams he managed to do likewise. He excelled at building-based work and ran well-attended, vibrant youth clubs in deprived areas of London, Newcastle, Lancaster and Preston.
He was able to adapt his skills to many other settings and in the mid-1990s he set up and ran a pupil referral unit with Gabrielle Cox and Irvine Williams at the Hideaway Youth Project in Moss Side, Manchester, providing education to young people who had been excluded from school. In the early 2000s he managed the Single Regeneration Budget in north Lancaster, where he was instrumental in transforming a disused building on Ryelands Park into a youth centre. During this time, he worked with Helen Clugston at the Dukes theatre, Lancaster, supporting her Shattering Images theatre group for young people with disabilities.
Bob and I met in 1992 when we were both working at the St John Boste Youth Centre in Newcastle upon Tyne. We were married in Colombia in 2008. For the past decade we had lived in Cambridgeshire, from where
Bob facilitated the West Norfolk Youth Advisory Board, enabling young people to influence youth provision through representation to their local authority.
Beyond youth work, Bob and I provided foster care for a number of children in Cambridgeshire. He undertook several charity bike rides, including by tandem from John O’Groats to Land’s End with his brother Jimmy. He enjoyed walking and completed the Pennine Way with his brother John. He also adored our rescue greyhounds, Hector and Tallulah.
Bob was known for his keen sense of humour, generosity of spirit and courage to speak truth. Recently a colleague remarked that Bob had helped so many to find their smile.
He is survived by Enid, Jimmy and John, our daughter, Joy, and me.
