I rise to bring to the Houses attention the outstanding achievements of Mr Lloyd Valentine from my electorate of Charlestown.

Mr Valentine was recently granted the Youth Award at the 43rd annual Newcastle Business Clubs awards night. He was awarded this for his passionate advocacy for local people with a disability.

Mr Valentine, who had himself faced debilitating health issues for some time, has founded the Health Change Challenge which is a community program for people living with a disability and/or mental illness. The program takes a holistic approach to health care and seeks to help people make long term improvements to their eating, lifestyle, cooking skills and shopping habits.

The program has already seen outstanding results for participants and is currently running in collaboration with the University of Newcastle.

I congratulate Lloyd on his success and look forward to seeing many great things from him in the future.