Introducing our new team member – Alexa

Hi, my name is Alexa Armstrong and I am delighted to have joined the Fast Forward Gambling Hub team as their Support Officer (Maternity Cover)!

I come from an Environmental Science background based mainly around the protection of Scotland’s waterways.

My most recent roles were with SEPA (Scottish Environment Protection Agency) where I worked with planning departments, industries, farmers and Scottish Water to come up with solutions and policies on how to improve and maintain the water quality in rivers, lochs and the coastline.

I have experience in writing case studies and legislative summaries, turning large documents of text into something more easily digestible! I am very keen to work somewhere that makes a difference, which is why I was so keen to work with Fast Forward.

As a mother of young children, I can see so many harms that could become an issue for them as they get older. It is wonderful to be involved with an organisation that looks to address these head on. My role will involve supporting the Gambling Education team’s activities from the Fast Forward office in Edinburgh, including the development of case studies and the co-ordination of evaluations following the team’s training sessions.

This January saw the start of the ‘Trust Me’ tour, following the success of last year’s ‘Flutter’. This is a theatre performance about gambling harms, which is being toured around secondary schools in Scotland.

My involvement in this project is to ensure the pupil and staff evaluations from each of the 60+ schools visited by the tour are collated and reported back to the production team and our funders.

More information on the Trust Me tour can be found here. You can also see updates on Twitter, by following hte hashtag #TrustMeTheatreTour.

Furthermore, we have our Scottish Gambling Education Network (SGEN) Conference on 1^st April 2020 in Glasgow, where highlights will include a keynote presentation on gaming and gambling by Dr David Zendle from the University of York and a performance of Trust Me. Please do sign up for this event here, I look forward to meeting you there!

If you would like to be kept informed about the Network or to receive the newsletter when it comes out, just drop Alexa an email: alexa@fastforward.org.uk