Jess Callaghan

Full Time Tutor - North

Jess is based in the North East and co-ordinates the training for StreetGames projects and partners in the North of England, she has over 10 years of experience coaching and tutoring sport in the community.

Jess’ first role was to deliver sporting activities to children at out of school and holiday clubs, during which time she completed her degree in Sport at Northumbria University.

Upon graduation she began volunteering for Depaul UK on a sports programme for BME groups in Tyne and Wear before moving into a professional capacity for the organisation, co-ordinating their sports project to re-engage people in disadvantaged areas of Newcastle.

Jess then moved on to the USA firstly coaching, progressing to developing sporting opportunities for an East coast organisation in New York. On returning to the UK, Jess began tutoring for a Premier League football club foundation as well as delivering on the Kicks programme.

Jess has a range of coaching, tutoring and assessing qualifications as well as several other certificates which compliment her role, and she continues to volunteer with a local kid’s club in her spare time.

Jess is a Newcastle United fan and has many great memories, her favourite being watching Tino Asprilla score a hatrick against Barcelona in the Champion’s league.

Rus Smith

Full Time Tutor - Midlands

Rus has over 14 years experience working in sport development with the Football Association, StreetGames and Basketball.

A passion for changing the sporting offer for young people, Rus also supports projects day to day in the Black Country and Nottingham.

Rus has lots of previous on the ground experience of the StreetGames environment having worked as Project Lead for 4 years in West Bromwich. He also coaches for Aston Villa WSL, The FA at St Georges Park and is the chairman of a netball club.

Graham Helm

Part Time Tutor - North West

Graham has several years experience as a senior manager within a local authority youth service.

Graham is a confident and charismatic tutor and group facilitator who has in depth knowledge of working with young people and project development. Since losing his sight 4 years ago, Graham has also worked within the disability sector and often reflects upon his blindness to positively challenge groups around inclusion.

Mo Sarwar

Part Time Tutor - Midlands

Since moving away from a career in medical research, have been playing and coaching squash for over 30 years and have represented Coventry, Warwickshire and England.

As a Level 4 squash coach I have developed players from grassroots level to international standard. Coaching roles include Warwickshire County Coach, Regional High Performance Coach, and Consultant National Coach. Also played a key role as senior coach educator and quality assurer for England Squash and Racketball (delivered and quality assured all of the squash coaching qualifications from L1 to L4).

For the last 6 years have also been a Coach educator/assessor/IV/Lead Tutor for Coachwise and Sports Coach UK that enabled me to work with lots of different sports.

Very passionate about coaching and learning and always keen to improve my own skills by sharing good practices with other coaches and keeping up with new developments in the teaching/coaching sector. As part of my CPD I am always looking for and regularly attend training and standardisation days.

Working within the StreetGames family has provided me with an opportunity to share my knowledge and experience with a whole new group of people who are very passionate about the work they do. The work that StreetGames do with young people has actually taken my own learning and coaching to a new and much higher level.

My hobbies these days (time permitting) include doing some challenging walks in the country especially the Lake District and the Welsh Mountains.