Christie Spurling is the founding Director of N-Gage.  The vision for N-Gage came largely from his own experiences as a young person. Permanently excluded from his high school and placed in a residential unit, his complete disengagement from education lead to many struggles in later life including times of unemployment. After trying many jobs, including training to be a chef and various admin roles, he discovered an ability and passion for working with young people. Christie has used his experience to develop N-Gage; a project that he hopes will have a real impact on as many young people as possible. He has a particular heart for Manchester and likes the way as a city; Manchester is a place where new ideas are developed.

 During the summer of 2004 Christie noticed vast numbers of young people gathering in an area of Manchester called Didsbury, where he goes to church.  He approached the local police and asked if he could offer some detached youth work in the area.  The police agreed to him going out on Friday nights with a volunteer team. He used to meet in a local park and engage the local young people in sports activities and conversation.  He noticed an instant reduction in anti-social behaviour and the local police confirmed this.

After redundancy from his job in a behaviour support role, Christie decided to branch out into schools work and community action projects. The pilots were successful and so he registered as a charity and appointed some trustee's.  All that you see now is a development of that initial idea.

 Christie is a strong campaigner and believer in being a part of the solution, all the programmes he has set up try to look at young people as a whole person. If they are causing problems in school it is likely they may be also creating challenges outside of school.  N-Gage is committed to encouraging all young people to be an active and positive part of their community, in school and out.

 Christie is a qualified Youth Worker with over 15 years experience working with Children and Young People in a wide variety of settings, including Team Leader in a residential unit for Young People with EBD, Behaviour Support Worker for LEA and also as a Church based Youth Worker.

 When he is not working he is a keen drummer and plays in bands. He is married to Jo who works as an Office Manager and has a 5 year old daughter.