Volunteer training design practitioner jobs in bristol
We are seeking a compassionate, visionary, and strategic Chief Executive Officer to lead Mermaids through the next stage of its evolution, dedicated to improving the lives of gender-diverse children and young people, and those who are important to them. As CEO, you will be responsible for driving the charity’s mission, shaping its strategic direction, and ensuring the delivery of high-quality, affirming support services. You will act as a visible and credible advocate for trans and
gender-diverse youth, build strong relationships with stakeholders, and influence public policy and sector practice. Working closely with the Board of Trustees, you will oversee a small committed team, ensure robust financial management with the Chief Operating Officer, and lead fundraising efforts to secure a sustainable future. This is a unique opportunity for a values-driven leader who brings both strategic acumen and a deep commitment to equity, inclusion, and lived
experience.
Service Delivery:
• Provide strategic and operational leadership across all service delivery areas, including support line services, group work, advocacy, external communications, and policy.
• Ensure services are high quality, inclusive, and responsive to the needs of trans and gender-diverse children, young people and the special people in their lives.
• Lead the continuous improvement and development of service delivery models, ensuring impact, effectiveness, and alignment with the charity’s mission.
• Champion a culture of safeguarding, accountability, and young person-centred practice throughout all service delivery.
• Act as the organisation’s Safeguarding Lead, with oversight of on-call, safeguarding training, and ensuring appropriate escalation mechanisms are in place.
• Oversee the design and implementation of advocacy and policy activities, ensuring the charity’s voice is informed by lived
experience and is impactful at local and national levels.
• Act as a visible and hands-on leader for frontline teams, providing support, supervision, and inspiration to staff and
volunteers.
• Monitor performance, outcomes, and feedback to ensure services are meeting objectives and delivering positive change
for beneficiaries.
Governance:
• In partnership with the board of trustees, set and articulate our vision, mission and strategy, and keep this under continual
review.
• Lead the development and implementation of Mermaid’s strategic plan, ensuring sustainability and growth.
• Liaise with the board of trustees to ensure the charity’s governance, structure, policies and procedures are appropriate
and effective, taking remedial measures and implementing change as necessary. This includes supporting board
development.
• Work closely with the Chair and Board of Trustees to support strong governance and informed decision-making.
• Provide accurate and timely reporting on organisational performance, risks, and impact.
• Ensure compliance with regulatory guidance and legislation, including the Charity Commission and the Fundraising
Finance & Fundraising:
• Working with the Chief Operating Officer and the Board of Trustees, ensure Mermaids has robust, deliverable fundraising
and finance strategies in place, and subsequent action plans are embedded throughout the organisation to support their
delivery.
• In partnership with the Chief Operating Officer, ensure Mermaids has robust finance, HR, IT, data privacy and governance processes and procedures are embedded.
People and Culture:
• Line manage senior staff including the COO and service delivery managers.
• Foster a positive, collaborative, inclusive internal culture that values lived experience and wellbeing.
• Continue work to embed a culture of equity, diversity and inclusion across the organisation, as well as a focus on accessibility.
• Work to define and drive trans-centred leadership across the organisation, including ensuring that the organisation is a trans-positive, supportive employer.
External Engagement and Advocacy:
• Represent Mermaids publicly, including acting as the key spokesperson and strategic policy stakeholder, ensuring
organisational awareness of the external landscape and the changing needs of trans children, young people and their
families, and advocating for these needs to be met.
• Lead communications strategy, and lead press engagement by responding to media inquiries, interviews, press conferences and media events.
• Lead on stakeholder engagement, including with funders, supporters, community partners, and policy influencers.
• Advocate for the rights and needs of trans and gender-diverse children, young people and the significant others in their lives at a national level.
The client requests no contact from agencies or media sales.
At Young Sounds UK our mission is to help musically talented young people from low-income families fulfil their potential. We're seeking our first Evaluation Director to join a small, thriving organisation and lead our evaluation strategy. Working collaboratively with colleagues, you will generate insights that strengthen programme delivery, and how we understand and share our impact.
For full information on this role, including key responsibilities and person specification, please view the job pack.
The closing date for applications is Monday 14 July 2025 at 12 noon.
About Young Sounds UK
Young Sounds UK exists because musical talent is everywhere but opportunity isn’t: family finances and other obstacles too often get in the way. We’re here to change this in two key ways:
- We support young musicians from low-income families with funding and other help
- We support music education through training, advocacy and research.
Established in 1998 we work across genres and across the UK. Our four programme areas are:
- Discover: training teachers in how to spot young people’s musical potential
- Connect: targeting and sustaining young people’s emerging talent through strategic support
- Thrive: funding young talent UK wide through annual grants and tailor-made help for individual musicians
- Innovate: leading new thinking and action on talent development
Role overview
Young Sounds is a reflective organisation. We’ve always invested time and effort in seeking out, understanding and demonstrating the difference our programmes are making. We believe in learning from experience. This is what we mean by evaluation.
We have recently secured funding to build on our evaluation work to date, and it is a priority for us to more fully embed evaluation throughout our work – the Evaluation Director will be critical to us achieving this. The Evaluation Director is a new role and will lead the development and implementation of Young Sounds’ evaluation strategy, ensuring that our work is evidence-based and impactful.
Key areas of responsibility
- Evaluation strategy and organisational learning
- Programme evaluation
- Organisational capacity and culture
- Research and policy engagement
- Quality assurance and reporting
The client requests no contact from agencies or media sales.