Salary: GBP29,000 to GBP31,750 dependent on experience.

Hours: Fulltime: 37 hours per week spread over 5 days. Attendance on at least 10 residential projects a year.

Leave: 46 days per year, inclusive of bank holidays and pre-set reward days. (Yes, we know how generous this is! But we ask a lot in return - see note 2 in application pack)

Start Date: Mid-march

Contract Length: Fixed Term until March 2025, with likelihood of extension.

Reports to: Management Team

Who we are

Thank you for your interest in working for Free to Be Kids (colloquially known as Free to Be by our staff, children and volunteers). Our mission is to help some of the most disadvantaged children and young people in London and beyond to increase their sense of their own capacity, ultimately helping them to change their stories about who they are and who they can be.

Our main Thrive Outside programme takes particularly disadvantaged children on week-long countryside breaks, helping them to feel special, valued, brave and successful. For those most in need, we provide follow-on support through further small group residentials, one to one mentoring and our youth leadership programme. In 2022 we supported 229 young people who would otherwise have had no respite from very challenging home circumstances.

We founded Free to Be in late 2015 with a small team of key volunteers. From then, we ve grown into an established organisation with fantastic outcomes, with a paid core group of staff and an over 200 strong volunteer team.

Job Description:

The position is a dual role. You ll join as the organisation s sole dedicated Youth Programme Worker and will lead on a portion of Free to Be s year-round follow-on support for vulnerable young people who we have initially engaged via our Thrive Outside residentials. This will involve working with a member of the management team to run our Young Leader and Mentoring programmes as well as working one to one with a small caseload of our children who have more complex needs.

You ll also help lead at least 10 of our residential projects across each year - working on the ground with the children, leading the volunteers, and helping make the projects special, safe, and transformative for vulnerable young people.

Key Responsibilities:

1. Youth Programme delivery (approx. 60% of workload):

When not on residentials (see below), you ll help to lead the delivery of our year-round work. All of our young people come to us initially through our Thrive Outside Gateway residentials. Through that residential week they ll build deep trust with the organisation. Many however have complex life situations requiring longer term support. Your role will be to deliver and lead the youth work elements of this longer-term support. This will include: Assisting with our Young Leader Programme. This programme currently consists of a weekend residential training project to skill up young people, aged 14-17, who have previously attended residentials as younger children, to return as volunteers on those projects. Young Leaders also attend a thank you and feedback weekend each Autumn. We have recently begun to develop this programme further to offer greater year-round support including 1:1 keywork and support through challenges; sessions focusing on life skills development; linking them into work experience/capacity building experiences. We would also like to develop a Youth Board or similar in the coming couple of years. You will lead the youth development aspects of the programme: delivering support sessions and keywork to Young Leaders, arranging development opportunities, building participation, and growing the offer over time. Hold a small caseload of higher need young people. Working with a caseload of 4-6 young people at any one time you will deliver targeted 1:1 keywork sessions supporting young people with significant needs offering advice, support, activities, and crucially help to work through sensitive or complex issues including difficult relationships with parents/carers; low school attendance; challenges with emotional/mental health. Hold a small caseload of volunteer mentors and their mentees - providing regular support, supervision, and guidance meetings to the mentors; ensure mentors are running sessions safely and in line with policy; leading Start of Mentoring meetings with children, parents and mentors; taking the lead on liaising with the wider network of support around the child Including advocacy, attending multi agency meetings and safeguarding referrals. Mentoring is one of Free to Be's follow-on programmes. 2. Thrive Outside Project Coordination (approx. 40% of workload):

Our residential projects are immersive, exhausting in all the right ways, and full of opportunities for children to feel included, valued and successful. Children usually spend 5 days at a time with us - many will paddle in the sea for the first time, play hide and seek in the woods, build rafts, canoe across lakes, visit farms, forests, ruined castles and splash through streams. A small number of projects are camping based, but most run from a variety of residential centres that we hire for the purpose. The majority of these projects take place during the school holidays.

We want you to play a key part in at least 10 such projects a year. Initially spending time in the different project roles (working intensively with small groups of children; providing floating support to the project coordinators; perhaps overseeing catering or driving our minibusses.). Once you are familiar with the way projects work, we will support you to progress to lead and coordinate them, working alongside a member of our staff team or an experienced volunteer. This will involve managing teams of between 5 and 25 volunteers, to oversee the wellbeing of between 8 and 20 children and young people per project.

Jointly with the other project coordinator, you will: Take lead responsibility for the organisation, structure, and safe running of the project. Provide leadership, support and direction to the project s volunteer team. Set the tone and ethos of the project, understand and model Free to Be s approach to supporting young people, and lead the team to create the best experience possible for the children. Build excellent working relationships with Free to Be s children and young people, ensuring they feel welcomed and included and that their safety and support needs are fully met during the project. Support the volunteer team to respond effectively and in a positive manner to children presenting behaviour,risk issues (including safeguarding issues), or other challenges which may arise. Liaise with the parents/carers of Free to Be children, building positive and supportive relationships, understanding many may have been let down by statutory or other organisations in the past. Work to ensure safety and quality standards on residentials are of the highest level by ensuring Free toBe s policies and processes, (including safeguarding, health and safety) are implemented at all times and issues are efficiently and constructively problem-solved, with the support of the leadership team. Be the ultimate problem solver on the project - anything can happen, and frequently does! As a small but fast-growing charity, we may also, from time to time, ask you to step in and support with other tasks in line with the development of the organisation

Important Notes about this Position

Note 1: Leave consists of 25 days annual leave, 13 reward days which are pre- set by Free to Be (usually a fortnight in mid-late September and 3 days at Christmas) and the 8 bank holidays. Where bank holidays fall during a residential, alternative dates will be agreed in lieu.Due to Free to Be s core work falling in the school holidays, leave at these times of year is restricted.

Note 2: Weekend and late working is an ordinary part of Free to Be s residential projects. All staff attending a residential are given two rest days (in effect, days off) which are always taken immediately after return from a residential. We do not run a time off in lieu system in relation to residential and the significant extra hours worked during these times are rewarded via the 13 pre-set reward days in September and at Christmas each year.

Note 3: Attendance at 10 residential projects each year (totalling approximately 60 days and nights) is a requirement of the role. Some additional non-overnight travel may also be required. Car ownership is not required.

Safeguarding, Equality & Diversity and our Code of Conduct

As a charity working with vulnerable children, some of whom will at times display behavioural challenges and all of whom have experienced real hardship within their childhoods, we uphold the highest levels of safeguarding practice. We will support you to develop knowledge and skills in this area as it is a requirement of the role that you respondeffectively, safely, and robustly to safeguarding, confidentiality and data protection issues arising within your work with us.

We require all staff to work in accordance with Free to Be s Code of Conduct, values, ethos, and core principles and to build positive and respectful relationships with all other staff, volunteers, children, their families, and other organisations encountered as part of your work with Free to Be.

Person Specification

Ultimately, we re looking for someone with strong experience working with marginalised young people . click apply for full job details