Youth Voice & Project Officer

The Youth Endowment Fund  

Youth Voice & Project Officer

Reports to: Youth Understanding Manager (Programmes) 

Salary: £32,300 

Contract: 2-year fixed term (potential to extend) 

Location: Central London, Hybrid – 2 days in the office 

Closing date for applications: 09:00am, Wednesday 22nd May 2024 

Interview dates: week commencing the 3rd June 2024 

About the Youth Endowment Fund 

We’re here to prevent children and young people becoming involved in violence. We do this by finding out what works and building a movement to put this knowledge into practice. 

In recent years violent crime has risen significantly. Homicides, assaults, robberies and offences involving weapons have all seen sustained growth. We have also seen large increases in violent crime involving children and young people. This is a tragedy. Every child captured in these numbers is an important member of our community and society has a duty to protect them. 

The Youth Endowment Fund (YEF) is a charity with a £200m endowment and a mission that matters. We exist to prevent children and young people becoming involved in violence. We do this by funding great initiatives, finding what works and working for change – scaling up and spreading the practices that make a difference.  

This role and why it’s important 

It's critical to our mission that we understand how and why young people become involved in violence. The YEF’s work combines conducting rigorous evaluations and research studies with hearing directly from young people. It is also important to us that young people are central to the messages we share externally.  

Your role involves ensuring that young people’s perspectives are heard and integrated into our work. This includes supporting our Youth Advisory Board (YAB) and helping young people’s voices play a central part in YEFs external communications.  

This role also supports the wider team managing grants, contracts and providing general team support.  

Click to learn more about the Youth Advisory Board (YAB). Many have lived experience of violence and advise us across all areas of our work to ensure that young people’s perspectives are taken on board as we pursue our mission. YAB members contribute to the governance of the organisation. 

Key responsibilities: 

1. Youth Advisory Board support: 

• Plan engaging activities for YAB meetings and events. These activities require working some evenings and occasional weekends. 
• Provide support and pastoral care to YAB members, including personal development planning and safeguarding.  
• Help recruit YAB members (young people aged 16 –25) through interviews and managing recruitment. 
• Develop and schedule the YAB induction programme for new members. 
• Monitor attendance and engagement of YAB members. 
• Coordinate YAB attendance at external events. 

2. Facilitating Youth Voice in communications: 

• Act as a bridge between the YAB and our external communications team. 
• Work with the communications team to amplify young people's voices on social media. 
• Assist young people in sharing their views and stories through various communication methods. 

3. Managing grants and contracts: 

• Maintain records of payments and tasks using Salesforce. 
• Assist stakeholders and team members in using Salesforce effectively. 
• Support in procurement processes and grant management by organising documents and scheduling meetings. 
• Proactively identify and address issues. 

4. Collaboration and support: 

• Work closely with other roles (including our Operations and Culture team) within YEF to ensure coordinated efforts and sharing of best practices. 

About you -you’re the sort of person: 

• You believe in young people: You have worked with young people and know the huge potential young people have to bring change. You have experience and knowledge of adhering to safeguarding processes, and are able to be flexible to suit young people’s needs - understanding when plans need to change at short notice.     
• You’re passionate about helping young people to be heard: You have some experience in using media/social media to tell young people’s stories and are keen to learn more.  
• You’re able to juggle many diverse tasks at once: You enjoy moving between different types of projects, whether that be leading YAB sessions, supporting the development of young people one-to-one or creating exciting content with young people. You prefer a job that looks different every day. You don’t get overwhelmed by a long to-do list and can effectively identify what’s most important and how to balance different priorities. 
• You’re brilliant at improving and organising things: You like finding ways to make things operate better for everyone. You enjoy bringing order to what is going on. You’re good at getting your head around how a process works and improving it. It’s a plus if you’ve used the Salesforce system before, but not a requirement. 
• You love supporting great teams: You’ll be happy to support beyond your immediate team, using your organising skills to support the wider organisation. You don’t know all the answers, but you enjoy helping colleagues find answers and solve problems so that the team can work brilliantly and efficiently. 
• You don't want your days to pass without making a difference. You want to play a significant part in a charity that’s making a difference. You like the idea of doing a job that makes young people safer. 
• You’re committed to equality, diversity and inclusion. You believe and act in a way that celebrates and encourages a range of experiences, views and values.

While it’s not a criteria, we’re especially interested to hear from applicants who have lived experience of youth violence.

It’s also important to us that the people we hire do not discriminate. We believe in being inclusive and giving everyone an equal chance to succeed. Applications are welcome from all regardless of age, sex, gender identity, disability, marriage or civil partnership, pregnancy and maternity, religion or belief, race, sexual orientation, transgender status or social economic background. 

Additional benefits include  

£1,000 professional development budget annually, 28 days plus Bank Holidays, four half days for volunteering activities.  

Hybrid working details  

Our offices are based on Great Eastern Street in Central London. The post holder will be expected to be in office 2 days per week.  

If you’re interested

To apply, please send a CV and cover letter, and complete the monitoring form click on "Apply for this" button below by 9am Wednesday 22nd May 2024.

Please ensure that your cover letter can answer, within a maximum of 1000 words, the following questions: 

Please share why YEF’s mission is motivating you to apply for this role. 

Referring to the 'About You' section on the JD, give clear examples of:  

How your work shows that “You believe in young people” and 

How “you’re able to juggle many diverse tasks at once” 

You should also include the contact details of two referees, one of whom must be your current or most recent employer. Referees will only be approached with your express permission. 

This role is advertised as full time at 37.5hrs per week. As part of our commitment to flexible working, we will consider a range of options for the successful applicant. All options can be discussed at interview stage.   

You will also be required to provide proof of your eligibility to work in the UK. 

Interview process 

Interviews will take place the week commencing the 3rd June 2024. You may be required to complete a task as part of the process. 

Personal data 

Your personal data will be shared for the purposes of the recruitment exercise. This includes our HR team, interviewers (who may include other partners in the project and independent advisors), relevant team managers and our IT service provider if access to the data is necessary for performance of their roles. We do not share your data with other third parties, unless your application for employment is successful and we make you an offer of employment. We will then share your data with former employers to obtain references for you. We do not transfer your data outside the European Economic Area.