Hearing God Speak (3)

Anneta Pinto-Young

Anneta was Born and raised in Jamaica in a large family of eight children, where her father is an ordained Pastor and Deacon who served over 50 years in ministry. Her father is a trained musician, and she grew up in a musical family of singers and musicians and there was always singing and music in her childhood home. Anneta has served in the church from as early as she can remember, singing in the choir, directing the children’s choir, praise and worship leader, Sunday school Teacher and as an Assistant Youth Director. She came from humble beginnings and grew up in a small farming community in St. Peter’s, St. Andrew. She is a writer who writes inspirational content for a blog -Devotional Inspirations which is featured on Wordpress.com and Crossmaps.com. Her writing was published in an Anthology of Social Workers in 2021 - Hidden Narratives from Social Workers of Colour. She credits her gift of writing to her father who she watched and listened to over the years as he wrote sermons, poems and other recitals in his capacity in ministry. Anneta is a singer and has sung lead in choirs in churches from as young as she can remember and has featured on the Jazz circuit with the ACY Jazz Organ Trio in 2022 and 2023. Anneta also worked with the 606 Gospel group and featured at the 606 Jazz Club between 2019 and 2021. Her musical style is rhythmic with an eclectic blend of gospel, blues, jazz and ballads. Anneta is an advocate at heart, having started her career in 2001 within the charity sector where she was trained in advocacy. Those early years of Anneta’s career focused on supporting grassroots communities in advocating at the local government levels for community resources. She trained communities in governance and decision making and worked to facilitate consultations with local communities. She worked on developing a sanitation policy in Jamaica in 2007 and helped to deliver on this policy and was part of a national planning committee for the Regional Caribbean Sanitation Conference in April, 2007. Anneta was also a United Nations sponsored youth representative at the World Conference Against Racism in South Africa in 2001. She also represented her organisation and country at other international conferences and events focused on aid effectiveness and development, youth advocacy and lobbying and the United Nations Economic Commission of Latin America and the Caribbean in Chile, Nicaragua, Canada and attended the Commonwealth People’s Forum Meeting in the United Kingdom in 2008 as an official Jamaican representative and was interviewed on BBC Radio. Anneta is a trained Social Worker with close to twelve years’ experience in the field. She is a Coach and Mentor with level 7 post graduate qualifying experience from Kingston University since 2020 and she specialises in providing wellbeing coaching, to support individuals with career planning and creating a vision for their future. Anneta created the five-year plan template which she has used to support staff at various stages in their career development. Her coaching style focuses on building self-awareness, increasing confidence and empowering clients to understand their life’s purpose, tap into their gifts, talents and abilities and encourages them to maximise their life’s potential. Sessions with Anneta are deeply reflective, therapeutic and gets to the core of life experiences that may have created limited beliefs and ideas about oneself. Clients have fed back about feeling more confident, self-assured, feeling more connected spiritually, empowered and able to take on life’s challenges and learning how to turn obstacles into opportunities. Anneta is trained in professional leadership through the Frontline Pathways Leadership programme, the Practice Supervision Development Programme and has over seven years’ experience of leading on programmes to Managers, social workers, students, Newly Qualified Social Workers, practice educators, trainers and practice supervisors. Anneta is a skilled trainer and facilitator with over twelve years’ experience in delivering training, facilitating groups and providing action facilitation. She is trained in Action and Facilitation Strategies through the Institute of Leadership and Management, completed the training of trainers and has completed participatory action and learning and action programmes.