Head of it jobs in islington, greater london

About the role 

This is an exciting opportunity to join ATLEU, a leading anti-trafficking and human rights charity. We are looking for an inclusive, creative, talented facilitator, with exceptional leadership and interpersonal skills to be our Participation Manager.

The Participation Manager will facilitate survivors of trafficking to use their experiences to support the development of ATLEU’s work and services and to improve policy and practice across the anti-trafficking and legal advice sectors. Working with group members, this individual will be responsible for supporting the expansion of the group  (The Changemakers) and the remit of ATLEU’s participation work from January 2026 when the current projects come to a close, ensuring new members are inducted and supported to engage and lead in future projects. The overall aim of the participation and activism work is to integrate survivors at all levels within ATLEU, as well as creating a project that offers different levels of engagement, depending on the interests and capacity of individual group members.

The Participation Manager is a key member of the Rise and Lead project team, which is a groundbreaking new employment pathways project in partnership with Southeast and East Asian Centre (SEEAC) and Voice of Domestic Workers for those with experience of human trafficking and migration. 

The successful candidate will have direct experience of working with vulnerable individuals, ideally survivors of trafficking, a strong understanding of the challenges survivors face and be committed to shifting power to people with lived experience. They will have a flexible approach and understand what empowerment means in its truest sense, allowing the structure of the work to be led by the needs of the group rather than with a predetermined or fixed idea of what this will look like.
 

About ATLEU

Our vision is a just world where no one is enslaved or exploited. 

Our mission is to secure safety, rights and justice for survivors of human trafficking by using and challenging the law.

Our strategic priorities are: 

1. To provide a model of high quality holistic legal support to survivors of human trafficking and exploitation

2. To tackle systemic injustice through strategic litigation and pursuing policy change

3. To build survivor leadership and influence within ATLEU and across the sector

4. To strengthen the capacity of advice, frontline and community organisations to meet the needs of survivors

5. To invest in and support our people to ensure we are effective and sustainable

Our values are:

There is always another way

We are persistent, resourceful and creative in our approach.  We do the hard work to make justice accessible.  We don’t give up in the fight for fairness and freedom.

We make the time. We listen. We hear

We take the time to really listen to our clients and colleagues. We want to restore autonomy and agency from where it was stolen.  We give advice, not tell you what to do. If you fight, we fight.  Our clients’ needs come first.

Knowledge is for sharing.

We lead the way in our knowledge and expertise of reforming the law. The strength of our team comes from our willingness to collaborate and share.  We put our work before pride and always ask for help. Power of our knowledge comes through sharing it with others to secure justice and reform the law.

Although just a small team, ATLEU’s work has led to significant changes in law and policy. Since we were established in 2013, we have led the way in ensuring that survivors of trafficking have access to free, independent legal advice by enabling access to legal aid, across the range of issues survivors experience. For example, our litigation against the Legal Aid Agency led to their concession that legal aid provision was insufficient for victims of trafficking and an increase in the number of trafficking compensation cases that legal aid providers were contractually able to assist with each year (from 5 up to 100). Following litigation on behalf of our client LL, the Legal Aid Agency agreed that victims of trafficking were legally entitled to free immigration advice on applying for leave to remain in the UK on the basis of their trafficking experiences and publicised this entitlement.

Employment Information 

Job Title: Participation Manager (Lived Experience)

Job Term: Permanent 

Location: London based with hybrid working. We can offer flexible working arrangements but the role will require regular office attendance

Hours: 21 hrs per week

Salary Band: £31,374 – £37,772 pro rata per year.  Starting salary will depend on the level of candidate’s experience

Pension: 7% pension contribution 

Leave: 33 days a year (including bank holidays), with an increase of 1 day per year for each complete year of service, capped at 30 days plus bank holidays per year (38 days).

Benefits: Individual training budget and employee wellbeing programme, monthly team lunches and a personal wellbeing fund.

Probation period: 6-month probation period 

Reports to: Policy Manager

Objectives of the post 

• To lead on the development of ATLEU’s participation strategy including a plan for implementation. 

• To develop ATLEU’s Changemakers expert by experience group so that it is sustainable, resilient and inclusive and able to deliver its strategic objectives.

• To build the power of survivors within ATLEU to influence organisational strategy and decision making and inform ATLEU’s services and priorities. 

Main Responsibilities 

Strategy development

1. Using the framework of ATLEU’s 5-year strategic plan, develop ATLEU’s participation strategy creating an annual plan to deliver on our organisational vision. 

2. Develop and maintain positive relationships across ATLEU’s team staying up to date with different areas of organisational work in order to create opportunities for collaboration and coproduction with the Changemakers, finding flexible and creative ways to integrate new opportunities into the annual plan. 

Developing ATLEU’s Changemakers group

3. Recruit and induct people with lived experience of trafficking to be active participants in the Changemakers.

4. To facilitate meetings of the Changemakers ensuring activities are accessible and inclusive for all participants.

5. To secure opportunities for skills and knowledge development through internal and external training.

6. Conduct needs assessments to identify safeguarding, support needs and development goals and provide practical and emotional support where required.

7. Nurturing the wellbeing and solidarity of the group, providing individual pastoral support, coordinating reflective practice sessions and group activities.

8. Review, adapt, and agree terms of reference and foundational values with the group. 

9. To manage the annual lived experience budget.
 

Building the power of survivors within ATLEU 

10. To be an effective liaison between the group and the Director, trustees and wider staff team.

11. Understanding how ATLEU works as an organisation and its key activities and facilitating regular communication between Changemakers and ATLEU’s people. 

12. Create opportunities for collaboration, co-creation and leadership for ATLEU’s Changemakers members.

13. Identifying potential opportunities for Changemakers to take on paid roles within the organisation, defining the scope of the role, recruitment/ selection of individuals for the roles, and supporting individuals to gain experience of working independently (eg. peer research training development, training delivery).

14. To take a creative and flexible approach to working with the group, to understand their priorities and goals and find ways to steer and adapt their ideas so that they can be delivered within an organisational context. 

15. Work with ATLEU’s Director, Head of Operations and People and Inclusion Manager to create pathways for people with lived experience of trafficking to participate in ATLEU’s governance and decision-making, including at trustee board level and development of funding proposals. 

16. Support the delivery of ATLEU’s Rise and Lead Fellowship project helping to create an employment pathway for people with lived experience of human trafficking and migration in the advice and anti-trafficking sector. 

17. Support the Rise and Lead Project Manager with the development of a bespoke inclusive recruitment programme and the delivery of the training fellowship, and the project monitoring and evaluation and dissemination of learning. 

Coproduction with the Changemakers

18. Working with ATLEU’s Changemakers to act as agents of change, to influence external stakeholders (e.g. anti-trafficking organisations, policy makers, parliamentarians, media) and share their expertise, whilst ensuring the necessary safeguarding is in place. 

19. To work with the Policy Manager and Communications and Public Affairs Officer to facilitate people with lived experience of trafficking to inform, shape and co-produce: 

• Training 

• Information / legal resources

• Peer Research reports

• Monitoring and evaluation (ATLEU’s services/ Rise and Lead) 

• Policy & Communication materials

• Events

20. To find ways to cultivate respect for lived experience, and encourage inclusive practices in the sector, such as through engagement with the Lived Experience Coalition 

Professional Development 

21. To take responsibility for self-development on a continuous basis, including undertaking on-the-job and other training as required. 

22. To discuss regularly with the Policy Manager your job performance and personal career development. 

23. To participate fully in ATLEU’s appraisal process. 

Other Duties 

24. To play a full role in the organisation supporting colleagues to maximise their effectiveness. 

25. To support and adhere to ATLEU’s equal opportunities policy and to always act in an ethical manner that upholds the good reputation of ATLEU. 

26. To ensure that the terms of ATLEU’s funders are adhered to in all aspects of ATLEU’s delivery and to provide information for proposals and reports as required. 

27. To attend and participate in staff meetings. 

28. To support ATLEU’s social media presence in line with the organisation’s strategic objectives. 

29. To represent ATLEU at external meetings and where necessary and to attend meetings, occasionally including those out of normal working hours, when necessary. To travel between ATLEU’s offices as required. 

30. To undertake additional duties as may become necessary.

Please refer to the attachment below for further information and the full person specification.

We particularly welcome applications from Black, Asian, Minority-Ethnic and refugee and migrant backgrounds and from those with lived experience of the issues that ATLEU seeks to tackle. 

Please note that candidates must be able to work in the UK and will be offered the job subject to suitable references and a DBS check. If you are appointed to the role, you will be required to provide further checks on your criminal records status throughout your employment. 

We are holding two online information sessions on Zoom in English for applicants to find out more about the role. Details are as follows. A Zoom joining link can be found in the downloadable job pack:

Date:    Thursday 23rd October 

Time:    6.30 - 7.15pm

Meeting ID:     Zoom 889 0469 8513

Passcode:  308237

Date:    Wednesday 5th November 

Time:    1 - 1.45pm

Meeting ID:     Zoom 871 8268 7260

Passcode:  587053

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NB. Please feel free to attend these information sessions with your camera turned off or using a different name if that would make you feel more comfortable in the space. 

Application Process 

Key dates

• Information sessions will be held on Thursday 23 October, 6pm - 6.45pm and Wednesday 5 November, 1pm - 1.45pm.

• The deadline for applications is 23:30 on Sunday 16 November.Applications received after this time will not be considered. 

• First round interviews will be held in person on Tuesday 2 and Wednesday 3 December. 

• Second round interviews will be held in person on Wednesday 10 December. 

Please confirm your availability to attend first and second round interviews in your cover letter.

If you do not hear from us by Friday 28 November, it means that you have not been shortlisted for an interview. We regret that we do not have capacity to provide feedback to applicants who are not invited for an interview. 

Please ensure that your cover letter addresses the following three points:

1. Why you wish to work for ATLEU. 

2. How your previous experience demonstrates that you meet the essential Experience and Knowledge criteria, as well as any of desirable criteria if applicable, and 

3. Evidence that you have the following skills and abilities:

   • (i) Ability to build rapport with a wide range of people and to communicate sensitively and sympathetically with traumatised and/or vulnerable people.

   • (ii) Insightful, creative and courageous with the ability to challenge traditional thinking and push for change. 

   • (iii) Excellent interpersonal skills, professional manner, able to develop strong working relationships and effective alliances. 

   • (iv) Ability to manage effective collaboration. 

Please also include the following information:

• Contact telephone number 

• Email address

• Confirmation of availability to attend first and second round interviews, if invited.

Inclusion at ATLEU

We are an equal opportunities employer and welcome applications from people of all backgrounds and experiences. We believe that diversity drives innovation, strengthens our teams, and leads to better outcomes for everyone. Each individual is valued for their unique perspectives, cultures, and circumstances, and we are committed to creating an inclusive and respectful environment where all employees feel supported, empowered, and able to thrive.

We actively encourage applications from suitably qualified candidates regardless of sex, race, disability, age, sexual orientation, gender reassignment, religion or belief, marital status, or pregnancy and maternity. We particularly welcome applicants from groups underrepresented in our sector, including individuals from Black, Asian and Minority Ethnic communities and those with lived experience of migration or trafficking. Please let us know of any reasonable adjustments needed during the recruitment process or in the role — we are happy to discuss how we can best support you.