Young people intensive key work practitioners jobs

Pause works to improve the lives of women who have had more than one child removed from their care, and the services and systems that affect them.

As Communications and Policy Officer, your role will be to raise awareness and increase understanding of Pause and the experiences of the women we work with in order to achieve positive change at both a national and local level.

This is a new role, sitting within the Partnerships and Engagement team, although you will work with colleagues across the whole organisation.

You will work with the team to influence change by delivering creative communications activity and maintaining excellent working relationships with key stakeholders. This will involve working closely with our Impact and Influencing Lead as well as our colleagues in practice, participation and engagement, so that you can learn from those with lived experience and ensure their voices are at the forefront.

The ideal candidate will be an excellent communicator with the ability to deliver creative communications to influence change. You also should have a real desire to create positive change in the services and systems that affect the lives of women who have had children removed from their care. 

We are using Charity Job's anonymous applicant tracker system. Your cover letter should be no more than 2 sides of A4, and so you’ll need to use your creative skills to be sure that you fully address the person specification and show us why you’re the absolute best person for this job.

SHiFT is an innovative, ambitious, and impatient organisation. We’re in a period of rapid growth and are already achieving significant successes alongside children and families. We are passionate about the ability of data and insights to help achieve this.

We’re a dynamic organisation with a strong focus on evidence and impact, and the Learning Team has already laid strong foundations for our data infrastructure. We are now looking for a Data Analyst to join our national team - a new and varied role, working alongside the Data & Insights Analyst and the Learning & Insights Lead. This role is key in championing our learning culture at SHiFT, supporting our Voice, Participation, and Belonging strategy, and ensuring that our systems and reporting effectively demonstrate the impact SHiFT is having - not only with children and families, but also at a wider systems change level. On a fixed-term basis, this role will support the Learning Team by freeing up capacity for strategic and evaluative work, while also offering the opportunity to contribute to an exciting phase of growth in SHiFT’s data infrastructure and learning capabilities.

This role is perfect for someone looking to take a step up in data management, training, and information sharing. The Data Analyst will play a key role in streamlining data processes, supporting accurate and efficient data collection across Practices, and helping us maximise the insights generated from our new, customised Salesforce data system. You will work closely with our data experts in local Practices (Practice Coordinators) and the wider SHiFT team. Therefore, you must be a proactive team player who is brilliant at building relationships, sees the value in working collaboratively, and enjoys problem-solving with others. You have a sharp eye for detail, sweat the small stuff, have a ‘can do’ attitude, and are ambitious to grow and make a difference as part of a practice-led systems change organisation.

Whilst this role requires proven experience of quantitative skills, we are open to candidates with limited or no experience in qualitative research. This is a varied role, and we envisage opportunities for fieldwork, e.g. conducting interviews, facilitating and moderating focus groups. We can provide training and support to help you develop the necessary qualitative skills. The successful candidate will bring both expertise and creativity to help improve data capture, analysis, reporting processes, and insight generation. Your experience will include working with CRM system(s) and data reporting tools, and you will be adept at managing multiple priorities in a fast-paced environment.

If you enjoy making data fun and easy to understand, are comfortable working with stakeholders from non-analytical backgrounds, and get a kick out of improving processes – then get in touch.

We aim to provide significant opportunities for personal growth, training, and career development, and are seeking someone with the ambition to play a crucial part in maintaining our data and evidence quality as we strive for systems change.

EQUALITY AND DIVERSITY

SHiFT is actively committed to the eradication of discrimination and disadvantage on the basis of race, religion, gender, gender identity, sexual orientation, disability, pregnancy and maternity, age, marital status and on the basis of socio-economic circumstances.  We are determined for SHiFT to be a diverse and inclusive organisation that is enriched by a wide range of backgrounds, expertise, and experiences. We want to build a workplace that celebrates diversity and where everyone can feel valued, included, and involved. 

As a charity working within youth justice, we are keenly aware of the over-representation of children who identify as Black, Brown or Mixed Heritage within the youth justice system. Challenging racism is a key priority for SHiFT. In seeking to achieve this, we understand the value and importance of recruiting and retaining a workforce which represents the children we seek to support. We therefore particularly encourage and welcome applications from people of diverse ethnic backgrounds, and we recognise that this group is currently under-represented within our national team.

THE RESPONSIBILITES

SHiFT’s Data Analyst has responsibility for: 

Data Collection and Management

• Support the effective use of SHiFT’s Salesforce system, ensuring accurate, timely data entry and maintenance across local Practices.
• Assist members of our local Practice Teams (Practice Coordinators and Guides) with data queries and monthly surveys.
• Coordinate and quality-assure monthly data submissions, working closely with Practice teams to ensure consistency and completeness.
• Help to develop reporting tools, dashboards, or templates on and off Salesforce to support embedding learning back into practice and more widely to contribute to our ambitions for systems change.

System Improvement and Efficiency

• Identify and implement opportunities to streamline data processes.
• Contribute to the continuous improvement of SHiFT’s Salesforce configuration, in collaboration with external developers and internal users.
• Help document processes and support training materials for system users.
• Navigate and innovate with different systems, including understanding the data recording systems used by Local Authorities and working with the Learning and Practice team to reduce duplication of data entry for practitioners.

Learning and Insight Generation

• Produce routine reports and data summaries for internal use, feeding into learning and influencing conversations.
• Support the Learning Team’s efforts to use data for reflection, learning, and improvement both locally and nationally.
• Contribute to longer-term work exploring integration of data across education, youth justice, social care, and health systems.

YOU WILL BRING

Beliefs and alignment:

• The belief that all people are capable of change and that a relationship with a skilled practitioner can be a powerful driver of this.
• The belief that young people who display behaviours linked to offending can be supported so that they cease offending and meaningfully contribute to society.
• An alignment to a culture of high trust and high expectation where there are fewer rules, high levels of accountability, and a need for excellent performance from the entire team.
• An alignment to SHiFT’s Values – ambition, courage, flexibility, and tenacity – which reflect the ‘Breaking Cycles’ ingredients (the foundations on which SHiFT is built).
• A preparedness to challenge the status quo and be positively disruptive in the pursuit of higher standards even when this is uncomfortable.
• Dynamism, tenacity, and determination – you are someone who does not give up until you succeed. You have a ‘can do’ attitude.
• Curiosity and a commitment to learning – comfortable in a fast-paced and aspirational ‘start-up’ context, and as part of a team that is committed to ongoing reflection, adaptation, and improvement.

Experience, knowledge, and skills – to be demonstrated in application

Essential

• Undergraduate level or equivalent experience in relevant subject area such as research methodologies, social research, sociology, criminology, policy etc.
• Highly developed knowledge and experience of data management systems, tools, and ability to use statistical and data analysis packages (Microsoft Excel, Power BI, or ideally Salesforce).
• Experience working with data entry, cleaning, and quality assurance processes.
• Experience in using data visualisation tools to create dashboards that improve efficiency and enable self-serve insight.
• Solid understanding and commitment to ethical and responsible research, data use and storage, and GDPR implications including anonymising sensitive datasets for analysis. 
• A demonstrable track record of using data to generate insights that inspire meaningful change, and a genuine interest in data as a tool for social impact and learning.
• Commitment to Anti-racist and Anti-oppressive approaches.
• Highly technical, able to think about the data pipeline from end to end, resolve difficulties and proactively source data where appropriate.
• Comfortable working with stakeholders from non-analytical backgrounds, gathering requirements, and translating them into structured analytical questions and approaches.
• A keen interest in improving organisational effectiveness and a passion for data literacy with an understanding of the delivery challenges and opportunities with the practical application of learning strategies.
• Demonstrably strong communication skills, with the ability to influence, build connection, and persuade at all levels and across teams.

Desirable

• Experience of survey and questionnaire design, qualitative interviewing and use of more innovative methods of qualitative data collection to capture user voice.
• Excellent presentation skills and ability to write reports both verbally and in writing clearly and confidently to a range of internal and external stakeholders.
• Familiarity with social sector data (e.g. education, social care, youth justice).
• Strong experience with Salesforce CRM platform.
• Experience of writing fundraising applications.

Qualifications and background

• Right to work in the UK.
• This post is subject to a police check of previous criminal convictions with the Disclosure and Barring Service (DBS).

Candidates are encouraged to apply even if your experience does not precisely match the job description for this role. Your experience, skills and passion will set you apart so tell us about your achievements and how this has shaped you, including things you’ve learned along the way.

Salary: £31,000 FTE.

Position: 1-year fixed term, full time, open to flexible and hybrid working, with an expectation of regular travel to the national office in London and out to Practices across England as needed.

Location: UK-based, with regular travel to Coram Campus, Brunswick Square, London, WC1N 1AZ / our Practices across England.

Reporting to: Learning & Insight Lead.

Start date: ASAP.

Apply by sending a short covering letter (maximum 2 sides of A4) addressed to Ella Armstrong, Learning and Insights Lead, SHiFT, outlining your experience and suitability for the role, together with a CV, details of two referees. We will not take up references without your permission. Please include details of your current notice period as part of your CV or letter of application. Please also fill out the Equality and Diversity Monitoring Form in the job pack.

Applications close at 23.59 on 21st July 2025.

Applicants will be notified of shortlisting decisions on 22nd July 2025 and invited for interview as appropriate.

Staff panel interviews will be held virtually on 29th July 2025, this will be a values-based interview. Second round, competency-based interviews, will be held on either the 5th or 7th of August 2025. Decisions will be made and communicated to candidates as speedily as possible thereafter. A data task will also form part of the application process.

We look forward to hearing from you!