Parliamentary and campaigns manager jobs in belfast
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Job TitleHead of Communications
LocationHome based (Home working with regular meetings in London)
Salary£45,000 - £55,000
HoursFull Time, permanent
Reports to Chief Policy Officer
About Parentkind
As one of the largest federated charities in the UK, with arguably greater reach into the lives of families and educational settings than any other non-Government organisation, Parentkind is on a bold and urgent mission: to support, champion, and empower parents to be partners in their children’s education and wellbeing.
Although best known for our support of almost 24,000 Parent Teacher Associations (PTAs), Parent Councils, and Schools, helping them build strong school communities whilst they raise approaching £140 million each year to enhance children’s education, our work stretches far beyond the school gates. Parentkind is building a powerful movement that recognises parental engagement not as a nicety, but a necessity.
Supporting parents beyond the school gate
In recent years, families have faced a series of compounding challenges: the cost-of-living crisis, rising child poverty, and deepening educational inequality. These pressures have left many parents struggling to meet basic needs—let alone feel confident engaging in their child’s learning journey. Parentkind has responded to this moment with compassion, agility and purpose, through a series of transformative campaigns, resources, and partnerships.
Our No Cold Child initiative with FatFace stepped in to address a stark statistic: over 150,000 children in the UK do not own a winter coat due to poverty. Through our trusted relationships with schools we distributed 10,000 warm, high-quality coats worth £600,000 to the children who needed them most. Winning the Business Charity Awards ‘Fashion & Retail’ Award, and shortlisted for two further awards, the campaign has been praised not just for providing warmth, but for restoring dignity, inclusion, and school readiness to thousands of children.
The All Dressed Up campaign—developed with World Book Day and Rubies Masquerade—confronted the often-overlooked issue of financial exclusion on key celebration days. More than 100,000 free dressing up costumes worth £1.34 million were delivered to children from low-income families. By enabling participation in events like World Book Day, we helped spark imagination, joy, and belonging for children who might otherwise feel left out—boosting self-esteem and supporting a positive connection to learning.Furthermore, helping attract children into school on a day which often sees struggling parents keep their children at home.
Alongside these national campaigns, Parentkind supports families year-round through a growing suite of programmes designed to inform, prepare and empower parents. Our Be School Ready programme offers crucial guidance and confidence to parents preparing their children for the leap into primary education. With a mix of practical advice, developmental tips, and reassurance, through the distribution of 150,000 copies of Be School Ready and an online campaign, it supports families at one of the most formative moments in their child’s life.
We also deliver a wide-ranging series of live expert webinars and parent-friendly resources, covering topics such as managing anxiety, supporting special educational needs, navigating school transitions, and building home-school partnerships. These resources, developed in consultation with experts and rooted in lived parent experience, equip families to feel informed and empowered, no matter what challenges arise.
Our direct support of schools
Our collaboration with Asda on Cashpot for Schools is another example of unlocking support at scale. This innovative community-led funding model allowed shoppers to nominate and fund their local schools simply through everyday spending. This campaign has generated £5.78 million for schools during the past twelve months, supporting everything from basic classroom supplies to vital extracurricular programmes and pupil wellbeing initiatives. Also shortlisted for a Business Charity Award, it is already a model for community-driven philanthropy.
In April, we launched our Parent-Friendly Schools Accreditation Programme, designed to formally recognise schools that go above and beyond in fostering positive, inclusive relationships with parents. The accreditation celebrates schools that actively listen to parent voices, make engagement easy and accessible, and embed family partnership in their culture. It is a practical and inspiring tool to drive long-term change in the sector and offers a roadmap for schools wanting to strengthen their community.
Our focus on Policy & Research
Our work is grounded in evidence. Since 2023, we have conducted the UK’s largest annual parent survey: the National Parent Survey. With approaching 6,000 participants providing 130,000 bits of data to provide invaluable insights into the struggles, concerns, hopes and fears of parents. The findings are fed directly into government consultations and have already informed national debates on school funding, attendance, mental health support, SEND provision, and curriculum reform.
In each of the past two years the number of policymakers, educators, parents and researchers accessing the National Parent Survey exceeded seven thousand, and the survey featured in more than two hundred media outlets each year.Excitingly, the Times & Sunday Times are partnering with Parentkind to raise the profile even further in September 2025 and the survey will be launched at a lighthouse event featuring the Secretary of State for Education (Bridget Phillipson), the Ofsted Chief Inspector of Schools (Sir Martyn Oliver), the CEO of Mumsnet (Justine Roberts), the Children’s Commissioner (Dame Rachel De Souza), and our own Chief Executive (Jason Elsom).
In addition to the National Parent Survey, Parentkind undertakes representative polling of parents throughout the year on a variety of important topics, which increasingly find exposure in the media and policy discussion.
Parentkind provides the secretariat for the Westminster APPG for Parents and the Stormont APG for Parental Participation in Education. Two very successful parliamentary groups bringing together policymakers and a variety of stakeholders to consider the challenges faced by parents and act as a voice for them through a variety of policymakers.
Our Media Engagement
Since becoming recognised as the UK’s largest parent charity, with likely more groups and frontline volunteers than the Scouts or Girlguiding, Parentkind has gained increasing prominence in the media.Beyond the reach of the National Parent Survey and our regular polling, Parentkind receives frequent requests for quotes of reflection and input by media in relation to their journalism and from Government and non-Government entities in support of policy announcements.
Beyond this, the Parentkind community of volunteers and PTAs share local or regional media announcements of their own.Whether or not it celebrating the completion of large projects they have invested countless hours and thousands of pounds into realising, or the community event they have worked into the night to deliver for their school communities.
It will be your role to take this much further, gaining increasing exposure for the work of Parentkind, its community, and parents more broadly.
If you believe, like we do, that when parents matter, children succeed, we’d love to hear from you.
The role will involve:
· Promoting our parent polling data and work across social media platforms with eye catching content.
· Providing comment on topical issues for social media so that we are part of the conversation.
· Build the right relationships to dramatically increase the number of of media organisations seeking input and thought leadership from Parentkind.
· Build relationships with broadcast media so we get asked to appear on broadcast media more often. There’s a chance for you to be a talking head too.
· Help to draft parent polls and reports with a focus on compelling questions that will hit the front page. We need a brilliant writer, able to turn facts and figures into engaging narratives with bold headlines and strong messages that catch the eye. Boring writers need not apply…
· Draft eye catching press releases with bold headlines and a compelling narrative to promote the work we do across the charity. You’ll also place the press releases with national journalists leading to high profile coverage.
· Support the authoring of articles, op-eds and blog posts by members of the Executive Leadership Team.
· Be responsible for media monitoring, measuring our media hits, and reporting on coverage and interesting themes for the Executive Leadership.
Your mission is to massively increase our online, in print and social media presence to make us the highest profile parent charity in the UK. We don’t need you to be an education expert, we need someone to get us on the front page.
We have a huge amount of data on what parents think and we need you to get it seen. This is a great job for someone who wants to grab hold of a “comms” function and make it their own.
Parentkind is a UK wide charity, you will be expected to support our work in other parts of the UK where necessary.
For 'Person Specification' please see the job description
UK-based applications only will be considered.
Registered Charity 
21 - 50
Thank you!
About the opportunity
Would you like to play a key part in influencing national decisionmakers across Wales, England and Northern Ireland to drive major, positive change in the dementia policy space? Then this could be the role for you.
Sitting within Alzheimer’s Society’s National Influencing team, as our new National Influencing Officer (Public Affairs) you would be instrumental in delivering innovative, engaging, collaborative, and evidence-based influencing work. You’d be ensuring that political and health system stakeholders are acting on the biggest issues affecting people living with dementia, working closely with other teams to drive work that is integrated locally and nationally.
While this role is predominantly focused on delivering national influencing activity in England, you’ll also be part of a fluid and flexible team that operates across boundaries and supports with our political work in Wales and Northern Ireland.
This is an exciting time for dementia policy in England, Wales and Northern Ireland. We have the chance to ensure that governments are prioritising dementia and the needs of all those affected by the condition. Our National Influencing Officer (Public Affairs) will be at the forefront of taking on this vitally important challenge.
About You
You will bring:
- Excellent knowledge of the political and health system and how to influence national decisionmakers.
- A strong understanding of the external political environment and a proven track record in political or similar stakeholder management at a national level.
- Experience engaging proactively with national politicians and decisionmakers, acting as the first point of contact for their teams.
- Confidence and credibility in working with both internal and external stakeholders, with the ability to influence across geographical and organisational boundaries.
- A proven ability to operate and thrive in fast-paced, multi-dimensional environments, and to adapt well to change and ambiguity.
- Strong analytical, written, and verbal communication skills, including the ability to translate complex data into accessible, impactful content and recommendations.
- Experience working across multiple UK nations in complex influencing environments.
- A commitment to involving people with lived experience – such as those with dementia or long-term health conditions – in your work.
What You’ll Focus On
In this role, you will:
- Lead or support political engagement across England and potentially other UK nations, using your knowledge of parliamentary structures and influencing routes to drive change.
- Provide oversight and coordination of political monitoring and stakeholder engagement activity.
- Plan and deliver impactful public affairs (or similar) events, including parliamentary receptions, breakfast meetings, roundtables, and party conference activity.
- Translate evidence-based policy positions into compelling and effective influencing strategies that achieve real-world impact.
- Build delivery plans focused on meaningful outcomes and measure their success through evaluation and learning.
- Produce high-quality, accessible content to inform and engage stakeholders, using strong presentational and communication skills.
About Alzheimer's Society - who are we and what’s our mission?
Dementia is the UK’s biggest killer. One in three people born in the UK today will develop dementia in their lifetime.
At Alzheimer’s Society, we’re the UK’s leading dementia charity and the only one to tackle all aspects of dementia by giving help and hope to people living with dementia today and in the future. We give vital support to people facing the most frightening times of their lives, while also funding groundbreaking research and campaigning to make dementia the priority it should be.
Together with our supporters, we’re working towards a world where dementia no longer devastates lives.
Our values make sure that our focus is clear for the challenges and opportunities ahead and remind us of what we all stand for.
Our commitment to Equity, Diversity, Inclusion & Belonging
We need to ensure the voices around our table better reflect and understand the communities we exist to serve. We strongly encourage individuals to apply who have a disability, impairment or health condition or individuals who identify as part of a minority ethnic background, as these groups are currently under-represented at Alzheimer's Society.
Our hiring process
We want you to bring your whole self to the process. Applications are anonymised until interview stage, and we’re happy to support any adjustments. Share your feedback via our candidate survey when applying to help us improve. We may close early if we receive high interest (with 48 hours’ notice). Some roles may require a DBS check as part of our safer recruitment commitment. Thinking about using AI during the recruitment process? we know this can be helpful in many ways but remember to include your personal and authentic self too. Your voice and experience are what really set you apart.
Giving back to you
At Alzheimer’s Society, we value our people and take a total reward approach to pay and benefits. You’ll enjoy a generous double-matched pension scheme, 27 days’ annual leave (plus bank holidays and wellbeing days), and access to a free Bupa Cash Plan, 24/7 EAP, Thrive mental wellbeing support, and virtual GP services. Our Society Plus platform offers exclusive discounts, wellbeing resources, and recognition schemes, while our flexible working, family-friendly policies, and life assurance provide peace of mind and work/life balance. We also offer a free Will-writing service and long service awards to recognise your ongoing commitment.
