The surprising double life of radio DJ Lilah Parsons
Lilah Parsons has been a regular voice on our airwaves since 2016: first on Capital Radio and more recently for Heart, where she presents the Weekend Feel Good Show.
But it’s not the only job this former model currently has. Chatting on White Wine Question Time, Lilah revealed she’s currently training to be a youth worker.
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“I do actually work with kids at the moment, which is quite fun,” she said. “I've nearly finished training to be a youth worker, which I do one or two days a week. I work at my local youth club and so I work with kids between the ages of 9 and 18.”
Lilah undertook the training, which involved coursework and around 60 hours of her being monitored working with kids, last year. One of the aspects of her training was to do a group project, which Lilah decided to do around radio “because at least it's something I know about”.
“We made little demo radio shows,” she said. “Then at the end I took them on a tour of my workplace, which was really fun. They got to go to Global Radio and see all the different studios.”
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Responding to Kate’s claim that the kids must think Lilah is really cool, the DJ laughed and said: “They really don't. That's the irony. They really, really don't. But they're sweet!”
Lilah, who used to present on MTV, said she first got involved in youth work because she wanted to feel more a part of her neighbourhood.
“I just wanted to get involved in my community, and I've always been interested in basically kids having the best opportunities in life,” she said.
“I honestly had no skills or anything, so I just rang up this youth club and they invited me along. For the first couple of weeks I was just there doing the washing up and stuff and I thought, ‘Well at least I'm vaguely helping’.”
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As well as giving back to her local neighbourhood, Lilah said she finds it a really satisfying thing to do, especially when she sees the kids she works with developing and enjoying what she organises.
She said: “One of the kids I was working with is 18 and he's got Autism and he was really shy at the beginning, but he does love his music and he just got so involved with that.
“He started doing a little made-up breakfast show with one of his other friends and I realised he was just flourishing in this environment. His friend was in the studio like, ‘Oh, [...] I'm terrible.’ And he's like, ‘No, you're not. You're great. Come on, you've got this.” It was so cute!”
Hear Lilah Parsons and Anna Whitehouse talk about social media, working on radio and why porn can harm relationships in the latest episode of White Wine Question Time. Listen now on iTunes and Spotify.
