Experienced charity trustee jobs

About Young Roots

At Young Roots, we want to see a compassionate and welcoming society for young refugees and asylum seekers in the UK. We work alongside young people seeking safety in the UK, building trusted relationships, providing practical and emotional support and promoting young people’s rights and power.

Our youth clubs and casework are transformative for young refugees, allowing young people who have fled danger, had traumatic journeys and who are often here alone, to find community and connection, have a space to be a young person and access support in addressing a whole range of practical challenges they face. We also draw on our evidence from working every day with young refugees and asylum seekers to call for change to the laws and policies which are harming young people. 

About the role

Young Roots is looking for a proactive, values-driven Head of Youth Work to shape our life-changing youth work services for young refugees and asylum seekers. This is a rare opportunity to take strategic ownership of a high-impact service, influence organisational direction as part of our Leadership Group, and work alongside inspiring young people and passionate colleagues.

You need significant experience leading a face-to-face service for people facing complex challenges (for example in youth services, homelessness, mental health or refugee support). You’ll bring strong safeguarding expertise, excellent people leadership and programme management skills, and a track record of developing high-quality, inclusive services.

In this role you will:

• Set a clear and ambitious vision for youth work at Young Roots
• Lead and support Youth Work Managers and multidisciplinary teams
• Champion youth participation and co-production
• Ensure services are safe, compliant, and impactful
• Build partnerships and help shape new projects and funding

If you’re excited by the idea of combining strategy with hands-on leadership, and want to use your skills to support young people to thrive, belong, and build their futures, we’d love to hear from you.

Why join Young Roots

• A senior role with real influence in a respected, impactful organisation
• A collaborative leadership team, highly skilled colleagues and values-led culture
• Flexible, hybrid working

To Apply:

To apply, please submit your CV alongside a personal statement by the closing date outlining how you would be a great fit for the role.

Your personal statement should be no more than 800 words, answering the following questions:

1. What is your motivation for working with Young Roots? (100 words)
2. What is your motivation for applying for this role specifically? (200 words)
3. What skills and experience would you bring that will enable you to be successful in this role?  Please ensure you refer to the essential criteria on the person specification and provide examples to demonstrate how and where you meet the criteria. (500 words)

Please submit your application via Charity Jobs.

No agencies, please.

Closing date: 18th February

Interview dates: 25th February (panel interview in Croydon) and for those successful at the first stage 27th February (young person’s panel).

Young Roots recognises the positive value of diversity, promotes equity and challenges discrimination. We welcome and encourage applications from people of all backgrounds, particularly those who can face disadvantage in employment, such as people from Black, Asian and minority ethnic backgrounds, LGBTQ+ individuals and people with disabilities. As an organisation that supports refugees, asylum seekers and migrants, we particularly welcome applications from people within these communities. We offer a guaranteed interview for those with lived experience of the asylum system and those with disabilities, where they meet the essential elements of the person specification. If aspects of the application process create barriers to you applying and you’d like any adjustment to the process or you’d like an informal discussion or advice on your application, please get in touch. We would also like to alert you to the existence of organisations which support people from under-represented groups to access employment, who can advise you on applying for this role. For example, Scope, Young Women’s Trust and Experts by Experience.

Young Roots is committed to safeguarding and promoting the welfare of children and young people and expects all staff to share this commitment. We take this duty very seriously.

Our work is underpinned by policies and procedures which promote safe working practices. We have a framework of training and supervision which everyone is expected to comply with and systems for monitoring, quality assurance and gaining service user feedback. On joining you will be expected to be part of this approach to safeguard our service users.

The role of the Learning & Development Officer is to provide a consistent and high level of both operational delivery and administrative support by updating training information and maintaining training systems and processes. In areas such as leadership development, performance management, apprenticeships, and supporting a full range of mandatory, technical and management development. This relates to staff, volunteers, trustees and agency and contractors.

This role involves a high level of operational delivery, administration and multitasking so the job holder needs to be confident in being able to organise and prioritise their time and work efficiently, effectively and independently in order to be able to respond to a variety of requests and demands.

This role is not open to sponsorship.

Staff benefits include shuttle bus, and more… Read more below.

Role Requirements

• Maintain efficient administration systems that facilitate the smooth operation of the training function with the wider Organisational Development Team.
• Serve as the first point of contact for all enquiries directed to the Learning & Development Team, providing information and assistance as needed
• Oversee the management of the team inbox, ensuring timely and accurate responses to enquiries while taking ownership of all queries
• Process and oversee internal training bookings using Select HR (our HR System)
• Handle applications for external training, including organising payment and liaising with external trainers as necessary
• Manage all administrative tasks related to in-house training sessions, including generating delegate lists, preparing materials for trainers, and booking rooms, equipment, and catering as required
• Produce and distribute certificates for programme participants upon completion.
• Process invoices from external facilitators, including managing costings for other departments
• Organise & coordinate the training calendar for the following year by liaising with facilitators and colleagues and working with CET and Therapy teams
• Update schedules with changes/additions as they arise and inform training representatives and departments
• Planning and organising ‘ad hoc’ training sessions as and when required
• Prepare monthly induction programme including training memos, induction folders, session materials, catering requests & induction evaluations.
• Deliver brief Training session to new starters and help with tours where necessary
• Deliver appraisee training via teams
• Prepare for training sessions, including sending reminders, organising session materials, catering, room and equipment set up
• Create monthly training and PDR reports and chasing compliance where necessary working with line managers.
• Produce ‘due dates’ and other relevant training reports for managers as requested
• Deliver all training related activities for new starters.

Interview Date: 02/03/2026

Terms and Conditions

Strictly no agencies, please.

As we often receive high levels of applicants for our roles, we regret that we will only be able to contact those applicants who are shortlisted for interviews. Therefore, if you have not heard from us within 2 weeks of the closing date, please assume you have not been shortlisted for an interview on this occasion.

About Us

The Children’s Trust is the UK’s leading charity for children with acquired brain injury, providing expert rehabilitation, education, therapy, and care at our national specialist centre in Tadworth, and to children and their families across the UK, via our Brain Injury Community Service.

Boasting a beautiful 24-acre site in Surrey, we are located just outside of London, close to the M25 (accessible via Junction 8, A217 to Tadworth) and easily accessible via National Rail, by way of: Clapham Junction, Sutton, and Epsom.

Staff Benefits

The work we do is highly rewarding, and in addition to an attractive salary, we offer a valuable range of benefits, including our staff flexible benefits platform, on-site nursery, free eye tests, enhanced Maternity and Paternity Pay, time out days for those experiencing menopause symptoms and time off for gender reassignment.

We also offer additional annual leave days for those with long service, with entitlements ranging from 35 to 41 days (including bank holidays) depending on your length of service.

Other benefits include free on-site parking; a staff shuttle service from Epsom and Sutton train stations to Tadworth Court, subsidised cafeteria, on-site staff accommodation (subject to availability), the ability to retain your NHS pension (where applicable), Teacher’s pension (where applicable) or the opportunity to join an alternative scheme, and the opportunity to develop your career in a supportive and collaborative environment.

Rehabilitation of Offenders

Many roles at The Children’s Trust are exempt from the provisions of Section 4 (2) of the Rehabilitation of Offenders Act 1974, by virtue of the Rehabilitation of Offenders Act 1974 (Exceptions) Order 1975 (as amended in 2013 and 2020) and as such, are subject to an Enhanced DBS check.  Successful applicants will be required to complete an Enhanced Disclosure & Barring Service (DBS) check, which will disclose all unspent convictions and adult cautions and any spent convictions or adult cautions that would not be protected.  The exceptions to this are our retail roles within The Children’s Trust shops, which are subject to Basic DBS checks which will disclose unspent convictions or adult cautions.

Equal Opportunity Employer

To help us achieve our ambition to give children and young people with brain injury and neurodisability the opportunity to live the best life possible, we want to accurately reflect the UK’s diverse population. We want equity, diversity, and inclusion to be at the heart of everything we do, and our people, services, and culture to reflect the diverse needs of all. Through our diversity and inclusion strategy, we have made a commitment to increase the diversity of our charity and create an inclusive culture. We have networks across the organisation working to ensure that these aims are met - including an LGBTQIA2S+ group, Ethnic Diversity Group, and Spark – our broad EDI group. Read more about our EDI work here. We welcome applications from all who share our ambition regardless of background. We will strive to ensure that any reasonable adjustments are made in respect of interview and working arrangements.

Online Searches

In accordance with statutory safeguarding and child protection guidance, online searches will be conducted for shortlisted candidates before interview. The online searches will be conducted by a person who is independent of the interview and selection process and will focus on relevant information returned via searches of the candidate’s name (and variations thereof). Social media searches will be limited to professional platforms such as LinkedIn. Any concerns relating to suitability for work with children and young people will be forwarded to the interview panel, for discussion during the interview.