Impact and Participation Lead

The Institute of Imagination (iOi) is looking for an Impact and Participation Lead to help shape how we understand, learn from and grow our work with children, families and communities across the UK.

This is a strategic and hands-on role for someone who enjoys turning insight into action — working with teams and partners to embed meaningful participation, capture learning, and strengthen the impact of creative programmes.

About the Role

The Impact and Participation Lead is part of the Experience and Learning team, leading the development of how we measure, understand and use impact across our programmes.

You’ll work closely with delivery teams, partners and communities to embed reflective practice and ensure that learning is built into everything we do. This includes designing approaches to capture both data and lived experience — turning these into clear, useful insight that informs decisions and strengthens our work.

A core part of the role is ensuring that children and community voices are genuinely heard and shape programmes in meaningful ways. You’ll support teams to move beyond consultation, building confident, inclusive approaches to co-design and participation.

This is a role that balances big-picture thinking with practical implementation — creating frameworks, tools and ways of working that are simple, useful and embedded across a growing, multi-site programme.

Welcome to the iOi, where we believe imagination is the superpower of the 21st Century. We collaborate with children, parents, teachers, academics, and community leaders on research and designing and delivering creative learning experiences across STEAM (Science, Technology, Engineering, Arts, and Mathematics).

Our mission focuses on supporting children from underserved communities by breaking down barriers, empowering their voices, and giving them access to transformative opportunities and essential skills for whatever their future holds. We believe every child can imagine and achieve their fullest potential.

Key Responsibilities

Impact & Insight (50% Focus)

Impact Frameworks: Lead the design and delivery of iOi’s approach to impact, evaluation and learning across programmes.
Insight & Learning: Collect, analyse and translate qualitative and quantitative data into clear, practical insight.
Embedding Practice: Work with teams and partners to integrate impact thinking into day-to-day delivery.
Tools & Systems: Develop and implement simple, effective tools for data collection, reflection and reporting.

Participation & Co-Design (30% Focus)

Child Voice: Develop approaches that ensure children’s voices are meaningfully embedded in programme design and delivery.
Co-Design Support: Support teams and partners to work collaboratively with children, families and communities.
Inclusive Practice: Champion participation that is accessible, thoughtful and not tokenistic.

Learning, Partnerships & Influence (20% Focus)

Capacity Building: Support teams and partners to build confidence and capability in impact and participation.
Partnership Working: Build strong relationships with schools, community organisations and programme partners.
Sharing Learning: Contribute to reports, briefings and conversations that share learning and influence wider practice.

Person Specification

Essential Skills & Experience

Experience: Strong experience in impact, evaluation or Monitoring, Evaluation and Learning (MEL), ideally across programmes or multiple sites.
Participation: Experience of co-design or participatory work with children, families or communities.
Insight: Ability to analyse and synthesise qualitative and quantitative data into clear, useful outputs.
Facilitation: Confident working with both children and professionals, supporting reflective conversations and learning.
People Skills: Strong relationship-building skills across teams, partners and communities.
Organisation: Able to manage multiple strands of work, balancing strategy and delivery.
Mindset: Curious, reflective and collaborative, with a commitment to equity, inclusion and iOi’s values.
Availability: Willingness to travel and work occasional evenings and weekends.

Desirable Attributes

Understanding of learning through play, STEAM or creative learning approaches.
Experience working across partnerships or multi-location programmes.
Experience contributing to reports, advocacy or sector conversations.
Knowledge of, or connection to, our focus regions (e.g., Tower Hamlets, Doncaster, Belfast).

How To Apply

Please review the attached job description for full details of the role, responsibilities and person specification.

To apply, complete the application form outlining your relevant experience and why you’re interested in joining iOi. We encourage you to include specific examples of projects you’ve supported or delivered, particularly your experience working with diverse communities.

If you require reasonable adjustments during the recruitment process, please let us know.