Sands exists to save babies’ lives and ensure that anyone affected by pregnancy loss or baby death receives the support and care they need.
Bereaved parents and families are at the heart of why Sands exists. Sharing their experiences of pregnancy and baby loss, and what connects and involves them with our work, is both an important part of their bereavement journey and a way to demonstrate the need for our vision and mission to succeed. This role will help us to show in a real and human, authentic way, what Sands is doing to save babies’ lives and support bereaved families.
Sharing these personal stories in external communications will help us reach more people, bringing to life the work we do in a way that engages diverse audiences, and increasing the likelihood of their taking actions in support of Sands.
This new role has been developed to support the Communications & Engagement team to develop our story-telling function, build our real stories library and ensure the associated consent and stewardship processes are compassionate, efficient and effective. The Stories Officer will ensure wherever possible, that external communications assets and content created by teams across Sands includes the voices of people touched by pregnancy and baby loss – including those who have been personally affected, and those who are allies of Sands, such as healthcare professionals, corporate partners, research partners, fundraisers and more.
You will have experience of working in a charity stories or communications team, or in a stories-led environment such as journalism.
A good knowledge of compliance and safeguarding issues, including experience of working with vulnerable people in a communications context is required.
With excellent written communication and creative skills, you will be able to produce work that captures and conveys real life experiences in a sensitive and compassionate tone.
You will be highly organised with the ability to multi-task and work across more than one project simultaneously.
The client requests no contact from agencies or media sales.
Sightsavers is looking for an experienced international development, policy or education professional to help us influence the development of inclusive education and international development policy.
Salary: £29,123.00 - £34,262.00
Location: UK, remote
Contract: Permanent
Hours: Full-time (35 hours) or part time (28 hours) with some flexibility around hours worked
About the role
We are looking for an experienced international development, policy or education professional to help influence the development of inclusive education and international development policy.
We believe quality, inclusive education is a human right and should be available to all children, irrespective of gender, disability, learning requirements, socio-economic background, geographical location, ethnicity and any other distinguishing characteristics.
As Policy Officer- Inclusive Education, you will Conduct Sightsavers' policy analysis and work with the Senior Policy Adviser on global influencing on education, with a particular focus on the inclusion of people with disabilities in line with Sightsavers thematic strategies. You will support engagement with key external stakeholders and influence the development of inclusive education and international development policy.
You will support Sightsavers work to ensure children with disabilities can access equitable and inclusive, quality education by:
- Conducting high quality policy analysis and generating evidence to support Sightsavers' policy objectives in education
- Contributing to the delivery of Sightsavers' education policy objectives, including through engagement with relevant national and international policies and processes
- Engaging with different networks and representing Sightsavers at relevant external forums to disseminate evidenced based analysis that influence target audiences
Whilst prior experience of education policy is not essential for this role, an understanding or background in International Development and an awareness of inclusion for marginalised groups is needed, as well as the ability to represent Sightsavers to external bodies.
This is an ideal opportunity to utilise your knowledge of education, international development, advocacy and / or policy to influence education and international development policy and champion every child's right to an inclusive and quality education.
There may be some travel required for this role but there is flexibility around this.
Requirements
To succeed in this role you will have:
Essential
- Experience of conducting policy analysis
- Working experience or educational understanding and awareness of the international development sector, including issues relating to education, inclusion and human rights
- Experience of supporting policy and influencing work at national or international levels
- Understanding of issues relating to education, inclusion, human rights, or social development
- Ability to represent the organisation to external bodies
- Strong analytical skills and ability to think strategically
- Effective English language communication skills, both written and verbal
- Ability to deal with complex ideas and concepts
- Relationship building skills with internal and external stakeholders
Desirable
- Experience of conducting education policy analysis would be highly beneficial.
- Awareness of the challenges faced by learners with disabilities
This is a varied role, please read the full for further details.
Benefits
Sightsavers offers some fantastic benefits. Our comprehensive benefits package includes generous annual leave allowance, pension, season ticket loan, cycle to work scheme, discounted gym memberships and wellness discounts. If you choose to work in or are visiting our collaborative, modern office space, you will find it an easy 20-minute train journey from Brighton or 45 minutes from London.
To apply for this exciting opportunity, please complete an application via our recruitment portal. We are particularly interested in learning of your motivations for applying.
We anticipate that the evaluation process will include a two-stage verbal interview and a written task
As an equal opportunity employer, we actively encourage applications from all sections of the community. Sightsavers is a Disability Confident Leader and qualified people with a disability are particularly encouraged to apply.
Sightsavers is an employer that does not tolerate any form of harassment and has zero tolerance for sexual exploitation and abuse. All potential candidates will be subjected to rigorous background checks and controls.
In line with its commitment to safe programming and recruitment, Sightsavers participates in the inter-agency (MDS) administered by the . Through collaboration with other MDS members, Sightsavers aims to ensure that there are no sexual exploitation, abuse or harassment issues relating to potential new hires and that we can respond systematically to checks from fellow MDS members. This ensures our work is accountable, delivered to a high standard and supports safeguarding across the development and humanitarian fields.