Angela Griffin: Busselton youth advocate named finalist for coveted community awards

Busselton City youth development supervisor Angela Griffin has been recognised for her passionate advocacy, recently named a finalist in the Western Australian Community Achievement Awards 2024. Ms Griffin is one of four to be shortlisted for the Stumpy’s Local Legend Award which gives a nod to individuals making a difference at a local level. Since founding the Busselton Community Safe Space charity in 2022, the organisation has helped young people with mental health support services. What started as a group of five coming together to discuss the issue of mental illness in the community is now a weekly session with 24 volunteers. Ms Griffin said she was honoured — and shocked — to be nominated. “I’m really surprised, it was really lovely. I still don’t know who nominated me so whoever that was a big thank you to them for it,” she said. “It was very, very surprising and joyful and nice to know that what you do, and work hard for, that people do care and value it.” Ms Griffin’s work with the City of Busselton dates back to 2015 and she has created activities for younger generations including launching initiatives for the Busselton youth precinct and skate park. She said seeing the growth in young people kept her passion alive. “With the youth centre, seeing young people when they come back and they turn up with their car and their driver’s licence and they’ve got a job and they’ve saved up their money,” she said. “We’ve helped them get their birth certificate and a bank account and a tax file number and help them with all those life skills and help them get resumes to watch them grow up, is definitely (a great) thing. “With (the) community safe space, seeing our volunteers connecting and not feeling alone and just actually feeling like they’re heard and understood ... that’s the first time they feel heard. To me, that’s just something that keeps me going.” The programs have been attended by 46,000 people and more than 1500 have been up-skilled. Helping others is in Ms Griffin’s DNA, she said, with her mother and a distant great, great, great grandmother being heavily involved in community movements. “She (my great, great, great grandmother) did some pretty amazing things,” Ms Griffin said. “She was involved over in London in changing the jail systems and she helped lots of prisoners who were getting exported to Australia on the ships and seeking women to read and write and literacy. “Those stories from my grandma were always really inspiring me as a kid, which I carried through life with me.”