When her children reached school age, she began looking for part‑time work but found doors closing. Then a friend sent her a link to a role with Airplay, a youth programme supporting Royal Air Force families across 26 bases, and everything changed.
Karolyn joined Airplay Coningsby in an eight‑hour‑a‑week role and immediately fell in love with the work. RAF young people faced distinct challenges: frequent moves every two to three years, constantly rebuilding friendships, and managing the emotional strain of a parent being deployed overseas.
“Military young people are not the same as civvy young people,” she says. “They move constantly. They know what deployment means. They hear things, even if you protect them.”
Karolyn Lamb,
Rural Youth Club Lead and Level 6 Youth Worker Degree Apprentice
Some of her favourite memories come from trips, including two days in London sleeping on HMS Belfast and navigating the Tube with 20 young people. Years later, former participants still tell her how unforgettable those experiences were.
As her RAF family moved, Karolyn moved too, slotting into new Airplay provisions at each station and becoming a consistent, trusted adult for young people navigating an ever‑changing world.
Lived experience
Eventually, at RAF Waddington, the YMCA Federation won the contract to run Airplay. YMCA Lincolnshire operated five Airplay bases, their youth team expanding quickly. As her own children grew older, Karolyn picked up more work, eventually working overtime well in excess of contracted hours and making meaningful contributions to wider youth service delivery until the Youth Service Manager, Leo, offered her a full time position.
As part of YMCA Lincolnshire, she began working with a wider mix of young people outside the military community and eventually progressed to Rural Youth Club Lead, setting up youth clubs across villages and rural areas. In two years, the service grew from four young people a week to more than a hundred.
Karolyn had built a career through lived experience, commitment and instinct. But she wanted to understand the theory behind what she was doing and why.
Levy funding
When YMCA Lincolnshire circulated an email from Captiva Learning offering places on the new Level 6 Youth Worker Degree Apprenticeship, Karolyn signed up immediately.
“It was a no brainer. It was fully funded. It was not going to cost me or the organisation anything.”
The structure of the apprenticeship made all the difference.
“I feel like I am an old biddy doing a young person degree. But the support is amazing. They help with different learning needs, extra time, whatever you need.”
The apprenticeship has also given her a brilliant mentor and a community of peers: youth workers of different ages, backgrounds and experiences.
What Karolyn values most is how the apprenticeship strengthens the thinking behind her practice.
She now understands the legislation, theory and strategic decisions that sit beneath everyday youth work. Health and safety regulations, risk decisions, organisational processes: all of it now has context.
Karolyn is passionate about professionalising youth work.
“People come in and call themselves youth workers without any background. They need that understanding behind it.”
For her, apprenticeships open doors that traditional degrees cannot. They reach people who learn differently, who work differently, and who need to learn in a hands on environment supported by employers and skilled practitioners.
