Widening Participation Officer Jobs
About TASO
The Centre for Transforming Access and Student Outcomes in Higher Education (TASO) is an affiliate What Works Centre, and part of the UK Government’s What Works Movement. Our vision is to eliminate equality gaps in higher education (HE). Our mission is to improve lives through evidence-informed practice.
TASO was set up in 2019 and became an independent charity in April 2021. Our work focuses on the generation, synthesis and dissemination of high-quality evidence about effective practice in widening participation and student outcomes. We primarily focus on developing and disseminating causal evidence.
The Role
The Head of Communications and Engagement will lead TASO’s communications and engagement work plan to raise the profile of the organisation. They will also lead on TASO’s evidence mobilisation work plan, working with the Chief Executive, to ensure TASO’s research and evaluation outputs are effectively disseminated.
This will involve ensuring a strategic approach to all communications activities, leading on the delivery of external-facing materials and publications, overseeing a vibrant social media presence and events programme. The role will have overall responsibility for a website redevelopment project over the next year.
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Ensure a strategic and effective approach to communications, dissemination and stakeholder engagement.
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Lead on the design, branding and dissemination of innovative and engaging communications – both print and online, including oversight of the editorial and publication process for all TASO research reports and resources.
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Lead on TASO’s evidence mobilisation plan, working with the Chief Executive and Research and Evaluation Team to ensure research outputs are effectively disseminated and achieve impact.
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Support the Chief Executive on delivering TASO’s policy aims. Lead on engagement with and monitoring of Westminster activities (e.g. select committees, reports, consultations) and liaise with key communications and policy stakeholders in the Department for Education, Office for Students and other relevant bodies.
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Take overall responsibility for TASO’s online and social media presence. This will involve overseeing a critical website redevelopment project over the next year and also includes oversight of the creation, upkeep and management of digital channels and content.
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Lead on TASO’s media relations, producing high quality press releases and news stories for the website, liaising with journalists, as appropriate.
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Lead on the delivery of a programme of stakeholder engagement events for a wide range of audiences. The events will range from small training sessions to larger events including publication launches and an annual conference.
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Provide line management for communications staff who will support all activities – including two direct reports and overseeing a team of three.
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Undertake projects and duties as required or requested by the Chief Executive or broader team.
The client requests no contact from agencies or media sales.
We are excited to recruit a Community Organiser for our Bradford Parent Power project. This role offers a meaningful, paid professional development opportunity. The Brilliant Club will work in partnership with Queens’ College, Cambridge, Dixons Academies Trust and Go Higher West Yorkshire to engage with parents in Bradford. The parental engagement model used will be based on the successful Parent Power South London and Oldham Parent Power projects.
- Dixons are committed to making a difference where it matters most, working to improve the future for thousands of children in parts of the north of England where young lives are adversely affected by social and educational disadvantage. We believe that every child, regardless of their background, should be able to fulfil their academic potential and go on to thrive. Founded by Dixons City Academy, the trust has over 30 years’ experience in transforming education through their network of high-performing, non-faith academies, operating in Leeds, Bradford, Liverpool and Manchester.
- Queens’ College supports world-leading teaching and research in a beautiful and welcoming environment, and has been in the heart of Cambridge for more than five centuries. At Queens’ we know that attracting the best students from a diverse range of backgrounds is essential if we are to continue to thrive as a vibrant and creative academic community in the twenty-first century. We are committed to enabling the widest possible participation and are proud to be partnered with schools across Bradford through the Cambridge University Area Links scheme. We work with communities across the city to break down some of the myths and misconceptions that have grown up around selective Higher Education, giving young people accurate and up-to-date information to enable them to make the decisions that are right for them.
- Go Higher West Yorkshire is a partnership of 13 Higher Education (HE) providers, working collaboratively to reduce long-standing inequalities in access to, success in and progression from HE. GHWY was formed in 2010 and is hosted by the University of Leeds. We are impartial, not promoting any HE provider or course. Working with groups underrepresented in HE, we strive to overcome all barriers, misinformation and uncertainty concerning HE and to ensure people make confident and informed HE choices. We support educators and influencers help people into Higher Education, and by improving young people’s employability skills, help inspire a more high-skilled workforce.
Parent Power supports parents and carers to develop skills in community organising and advice and guidance on accessing higher education, empowering them to make change to support their children’s future and ensure their they have a fair chance in education and their future careers.
Working with us, the Community Organiser will:
- Support local pupils from underrepresented backgrounds by empowering their parent/carers to become higher education experts
- Receive community organising training from Citizens UK and develop transferable skills
- Join a nationwide community of community organisers making a significant impact on university access
Person specification
Time and Resource Management:
Essential
- Able to plan sessions in an organised and efficient manner and adhere to agreed deadlines.
- Excellent timekeeper, ensuring prompt arrival to meetings and 1-1s; well organised within 1-1s and sessions.
- Capable of adapting quickly to new systems/ processes.
Desirable:
- Confident in using digital systems for delivery of online sessions in parent meetings
- Experience of creating resources
External Stakeholder Knowledge and Management:
Essential
- Ability to work in a way that promotes the safety and wellbeing of children and young people.
- Professional approach to problem solving with a range of stakeholders involved in the project.
- Awareness of role as a visitor within a school and parent/carer community; understanding of the other commitments held by professionals within a school and by parent/carers
- Understanding of The Brilliant Club mission and the Widening Participation agenda nationally.
Desirable
- Prior experience of community-focused work or hold a qualification at Level 4 or above (as listed here)
- Understanding of the barriers young people face to university access and some of the ways these might be overcome.
- Understanding of the current climate in the UK school system and some of the challenges young people and parent/carers might be facing.
Communication:
Essential
- Awareness of how to engage parents and adapt university style learning for a school setting.
- Able to communicate in a timely and professional way with all project stakeholders
- Able to take a relational approach to communication with parent/carers, especially in 1-1s
- Able to explain research accessibly to non-expert audiences
Reflectiveness
Essential
- Able to identify strengths and areas of development, open to feedback.
The client requests no contact from agencies or media sales.
We have an exciting opportunity to join our Sport Team. We are seeking a skilled and dedicated individual to join our Opportunities Programme as Sports Manager. In this role, you will play a vital role in overseeing our in-house and community-based Sport Project. Your aim: To help make physical activity accessible to those experiencing homelessness.
About the role:
As the Sports Manager, you will be responsible for The Sport Project. You will be overseeing the day to day running of the project and management of the team including Sports Coordinators, freelancers, volunteers, and peers. You will be leading on expanding the reach of the project, forming partnerships with like-minded organisation and charities and advocating for the importance of physical activity within the homeless sector.
In your role, you will also manage relationships for grant givers and funders, including being responsible for budgets, reporting and reconciliations. Additionally you will support the team in the wider role out of the project across the homelessness community, at time this may involve helping to deliver a proportion of physical activity and helping to engage wider groups of participants and staff.
The approach taken with clients will be psychologically informed, incorporating an understanding of complex trauma and addiction. The outcomes for your role, include developing positive and sustained relationships with external partners and helping to make physical activity accessible.
About you:
- Experience managing staff or volunteers and freelancers.
- Experience and knowledge of managing projects or partnerships.
- Experience working with people from a variety of backgrounds and in different settings.
- Your toolkit includes practical expertise in group dynamics and co-production, or you have the enthusiasm and aptitude to develop these skills.
- Experience of working or supporting vulnerable people, rough sleepers or people with mental health, physical health or substance use support needs.
- A non-judgmental approach to working with multi-disadvantaged/complex needs clients and to promote a strengths-based approach and an understanding of and commitment to Equality, Diversity, and Inclusion.
- Strong team-working and interpersonal skills, maintaining a collaborative approach to delivering .service objectives across work specialisms.
About us:
Single Homeless Project is a London-wide charity. Our vision is of a society where everyone has a place to call home and the chance to live a fulfilling life.
We help single Londoners by preventing homelessness, providing support and accommodation, promoting wellbeing, enhancing opportunity, and being a voice for change. From supporting people in crisis to helping people take the final steps towards independence and employment, we make a difference to 10,000 lives every year across all 32 boroughs.
We offer you more than a job; we offer you a chance to be part of a compassionate, driven team that's committed to making a real difference in people's lives. You'll have the opportunity to lead, co-create, and inspire change while enjoying a collaborative, growth-oriented environment.
Join us in creating a brighter, more hopeful future for individuals in need.
Important info:
Closing Date: Wednesday 1st May at Midnight
Interview Date: Wednesday 8th May
The client requests no contact from agencies or media sales.
The City and Guilds of London Art School is a small, independent Higher Education Institute. It traces its history back to the 1850s and has strong links to a number of City Livery Companies as well as certain Trusts and Foundations and individual donors. The Art School is now seeking a Development and External Relations Manager to drive forward its activities in these areas in accordance with the Art School’s strategy and targets. A key aspect of the role is nurturing existing and developing new relationships within the Art School’s expanding base of supporters and collaborators, including through the organisation of events. We are looking for a self-starter with substantial experience of working in a fundraising role in the cultural or similar sector, and who can work on their own initiative as a key member of the Art School’s senior management team.
Please see the Job Specification document for further information about the post.
How to apply:
Please send your completed Job Application Form, setting out how your knowledge and experience meets the person specification, and CV to Mari Shiba at the email provided.
The client requests no contact from agencies or media sales.
Actively Interviewing
This organisation is scheduling interviews as the applications come in. Don’t miss your opportunity, apply now!
Community Engagement Manager (Maternity Cover)
- Salary: £37,565 per annum
- Contract Type: Fixed Term (12 months), looking for an immediate start
- Hours: Part Time, 4.5 days per week
- Location: Elephant & Castle, central London / Remote – team members must be willing to travel to London periodically and to attend ecosystem events around the country
- Responsible To: Co-Head of Programmes
- Application Deadline: Tuesday 30th April 9am
- Interview Dates: 1st Round – we’ll be hosting rolling interviews for suitable candidates, 2nd Round – w/c 13th May
Our Commitment to Equity
We believe everyone has potential. We are committed to increasing equity among business owners, and we want to do the same for our team. Research shows that some underrepresented groups tend to only apply for roles if they meet every single requirement. At Hatch we are interested in your future potential just as much as your past experience. So if you’re excited about this role but your past experience doesn’t tick every box on the job description, we’d love it if you went ahead and applied anyway.
And if this role isn’t quite ticking all your boxes but you like the idea of working at Hatch, please add your details to our careers mailing list to be the first to hear about new opportunities in future.
We want to ensure that our team represents a wide cross-section of society, and we know that means we have to make an effort to understand and accommodate different people’s needs. If you would require any reasonable adjustments to be made to support you to apply, interview or join the Hatch team please contact us.
Role Purpose
The Community Engagement Manager (Maternity Cover) role will be a critical piece of our Community Programmes team, which provides support to founders at every stage of their startup journey. The Community Programme offering includes a roster of events including panels, masterclasses and workshops, as well as mentoring and coaching opportunities, and peer-to-peer engagement opportunities. We work with an exciting range of partners across the private and third sectors to connect underrepresented founders to networks and capital that will help launch and grow their mission-driven businesses.
We are looking for a driven, process-oriented self-starter who is interested in a role that will expose them to a variety of activities across the Community portfolio. As the Community Engagement Manager, you’ll work directly with the Co-Head of Programmes to ensure the systems we need are in place to support the team to deliver their support offering and that we are constantly learning and evolving our programme offering from Founder feedback and engagement.
You’ll be responsible for developing and delivering programmes and events for the graduate community, as well as contribute to our community engagement strategy – helping us to set up new aspects of our programmes and collaborating with programme managers and coordinators across the portfolio to contribute to a more engaged community of entrepreneurs.
If this is the kind of job you would enjoy, you should join the Hatch team as our Community Engagement Manager.
Responsibilities
Graduate Community Engagement
- Maintain the community engagement strategy for enhanced engagement between founders and a more cohesive founder journey across all stages
- Maintain the end-to-end design and management of the founder experience in the graduate community platform (Circle)
- Helping founders to widen their networks and facilitate connections that can provide critical support and direction via our graduate community platform
- Work collaboratively across the Programmes team to ensure entrepreneurs who engage with Hatch are connected to the best programmes, resources and offers for them
- Maintaining a list of partnership perks for the community
- Understanding both founder needs and partnership opportunities and coordinate the creation of relevant resources, content and perks to meet these
- Attend ecosystem events and speak on behalf of Hatch, and engage the wider team in doing the same
- Helping to ensure consistent relationship management and communication with partner organisations
Programme delivery and development
- Reviewing existing insights and conducting research to refine existing and new peer-to-peer programmes for Hatch founders and graduates
- Engaging mentors, experts and facilitators, where applicable, to support with the leadership of peer-to-peer programmes
- Planning, facilitating and evaluating networking opportunities for founders to build and foster community engagement
- Developing and managing support opportunities for our graduates to increase their access to capital, contracts, and connections
- Working collaboratively with Marketing and Communications team to drive engagement through founder and graduate communication channels
- Managing the content strategy and maintenance of the Resource Hub, to ensure accessibility of content for founders outside of a cohort programme
Systems and administration
- Maintaining the KPI tracking system to record programme founder participation, feedback and learning outcomes
- Feeding into the development of a new CRM system to help us better manage our founder and partner relationships
- Supporting the development and maintenance of our calendar of activities, showcasing engagement opportunities to our founders and the public
- Reviewing and suggesting improvements and innovations to systems and implementing system changes
Monitoring and evaluation
- Supporting the collection and collation of feedback from volunteers, mentors and founders in order to monitor and improve participant experience
- Working with the Fundraising team to report on Community Programme KPIs, anecdotal feedback, and to support with the generation of case studies, for funder reports and fundraising pitches
- Collecting and analysing relevant data for the resources webpage, graduate community platform, as well as keeping up to date with any relevant tech updates and training required for monitoring the data
Other
- Gaining and maintaining in-depth knowledge and understanding of Hatch’s work, priorities and future plans and acting as a spokesperson for the charity when required
- Representing Hatch externally at speaking and networking opportunities
- Other duties that may be required from time to time as part of a small, dynamic team
Person Specification
- Excellent time-management and organisational skills
- Comfortable collecting and generating insights from data for reports
- Experience of working in a fast paced, complex environment, working collaboratively with a diverse range of stakeholders and project managing cross-departmental work
- Exceptional communicator, both written and verbal, and comfortable talking to a wide range of people
- Online community management experience would be desirable
- Creative problem solving skills: always looking for things to improve and suggesting ways of improving them
- Ability to work independently , as well as collaboratively with the wider team, and identify potentially more effective ways of working
- A passion to support and connect underrepresented founders to start and grow businesses that will have a positive impact in the world
- Strong interest in equitable and impactful entrepreneurship – experience as an entrepreneur yourself would be a bonus
- Strong understanding of the entrepreneurship ecosystem across the UK and the needs and challenges of entrepreneurs
Benefits
We care about our people and giving them the things they need to succeed, and we are passionate about Hatch being a great place to work.
We are a hybrid working organisation, and our head office in Elephant and Castle is available for anyone to work from as much or as little as they’d like. We provide all team members with a laptop for ease of use wherever you choose to work. Although we offer the flexibility to work from home, there are times when it is useful for us to get together in person for certain meetings and team days.
Our benefits include:
- Flexible working – work from home or in the office and at the times that work best for you
- 37 fully flexible holiday days (including the 8 UK bank holidays) in 2024
- 4 days per year paid time off to volunteer
- 4 wellbeing days per year
- Enhanced parental leave
- Enhanced sick pay leave
- Paid time off for dedicated learning and development opportunities
- Team Days/get togethers 3 times a year
- Access to Hatch programmes and events free of charge
- Employee Assistance Programme Health Assured
- Employee pension scheme
- Salary Sacrifice Scheme
- Cycle to Work Scheme
- Eye care scheme
- Interest free loans to purchase season tickets for travel to work
To Apply
Please note we are only able to accept applications from candidates who have the right to work in the UK.
In order to apply for this role, we ask all candidates to provide a CV, a cover letter and a response to the following bullet points by 11pm, 22nd October:
- What excites you about Hatch as an organisation and about this role in particular?
- How do your previous skills and experiences align with this role?
- What would you do in this role that would really make an impact?
- Where did you first hear about this opportunity?
We are only accepting applications via the portal which is accessible on our website. Please note – we will not consider applications unless they include a CV, a cover letter and respond to the above bullet points, and/or if they have not been submitted through our application portal.
If you have any questions or need any help with your application, please drop us a line (recruiters will be politely turned away).
If you apply, we will process your personal data for recruitment purposes only and in accordance with our Data Privacy Policy.
The client requests no contact from agencies or media sales.