Shannon is employed by OPEN, Shetlands first youth-led and youth-governed charity in her role as Peer Research Development worker. She is also a peer mentor at OPEN.

She is a strong advocate for learning by doing, and for her this job has certainly provided the opportunity to do just that. Her main objective is to work with the young people to carry out peer research in the community to help them to work out their priorities, and to find out what they think can be done to improve the situation. She helps to empower them by giving them the opportunity to discover and voice what they feel can be done to tackle the issues which present themselves. In her role she seeks to create transformational change to benefit the young people in my community.

Her first peer research project was to seek young people’s views on what they would like from a youth space, as at the time there was no designated youth space in Lerwick. Shannon and a colleague talked to young people to find out what they wanted, and also spoke to older generations to learn about what had existed in the area previously.

Last year she completed a project looking at Shetland’s alcohol and drug culture, looking at why young people use these. The findings of this project have resulted in the creation of a Live Working Group, which will work towards enacting the recommendations of the report.

Shannon is also a volunteer for Who Cares? Scotland, raising awareness about care experience and fighting the stigma around care.

Since beginning to write during 2020’s lockdown, she has since had creative pieces published in several books.