Youth worker jobs in dunstable, central bedfordshire

Today, 12 children and young people will be diagnosed with cancer. We’ll stop at nothing to make sure they get the right care and support at the right time.  

• Salary - £15,509 (£25,849 pro-rata FTE)
• Hours - 21 Hours per week 
• Contract Type - Permanent 
• Location - Home-based, Hybrid/Flexible or Bristol office
• Closing date – Sunday 10th August
• W/C interview date – 18th August

Change lives in a life-changing career

When a child or young person is diagnosed with cancer, their whole world can feel like it’s falling apart. Independence is taken and confidence is stolen. Stability no longer exists. The future suddenly feels uncertain.

The impact of cancer on young lives is more than medical. That’s why we exist. Our specialist social workers help children and young people with cancer and their families navigate the emotional and practical impact of cancer. We remove barriers, solve problems and prioritise wellbeing. And we stop at nothing to make sure they get the right care and support at the right time.

We challenge the systems and policies that surround children and young people, we highlight gaps and campaign for change. Because we know what a better future could look like. And we know what we need to do to make that future a reality. We need to push harder, reach further and work smarter. And we need the right people on our team to help us get there. People like you.

About the role

We’re looking for a Learning and Development Coordinator (known internally as People Development Coordinator) with either experience in learning and development and/or a strong interest in building a career in the field to join our People Development Team

You’ll support the team in the coordination of internal and externally commissioned learning and development activities, working closely within the team, your departmental colleagues, and internal subject experts on a wide range of subjects and topics that are core areas for our workforce. You will maintain and continually improve our course evaluation, record keeping, and administrative processes, and bring new ideas and solutions to improve efficiency and measure impact. By supporting the wider charity with corporate induction and activities that help the workforce to drive their own development, you will play a key role in ensuring our people are supported to be the best they can be and maximise their talents for the benefit of children and young people with cancer.

This is a part-time role (21 hours a week). This is a hybrid role which can be home-based, hybrid or office-based (Bristol), with some flexibility depending on the post holder.

What will I be doing?

No two days are the same at Young Lives vs Cancer. So, summarising your ‘day to day’ isn’t easy. Here are some of the main things you’ll be doing, but you’ll find more details in the job description.

• Promoting the 70:20:10 model and providing the appropriate resources and signposting to enable our workforce to proactively drive their own development.
• To promote and support the use of new and existing learning and development tools and opportunities to enable people to develop themselves.   
• To work closely with the rest of the People Development team, People and Culture business partners and internal client base to coordinate and commission high-quality, value for money learning opportunities which further Young Lives vs Cancer’s ability to reach our strategic goals. 
• Create, maintain, and develop learning and eLearning resources in collaboration with appropriate subject matter experts across the charity. 
• Promote and provide up-to-date information and support about the People Development offer to the rest of the organisation, including the UK’s Growth and Skills Levy scheme.

What do I need? 

Diverse perspectives and unique skillsets are at the heart of Young Lives vs Cancer. If you're passionate about making a positive impact and eager to learn, we encourage you to apply, even if you don't meet the criteria and person specification fully. Your potential is what matters most to us, and we’re committed to fostering an inclusive and supportive work environment to help you develop.

The key skills we’re looking for in this role are:

• We are looking for someone with natural organisation and people skills who thrives in a collaborative environment, is adaptable, a great team player, and enjoys a challenge. 
• Experienced in administrative and coordination duties and working in a learning focussed environment 
• Good written and verbal communication skills 
• Strong time management and organisational skills, with great attention to detail 
• Ability to work under pressure and prioritise tasks and projects
• IT skills and being proactive about developing your own skills -  especially Office 365 and a good working knowledge of spreadsheets and databases are a must. A working knowledge of SharePoint is a plus. 

What will I gain?

 For people to reach their full potential, they need the right environment. As a member of Team Young Lives, you’ll be made to feel supported, valued and appreciated. Here’s how we do it:

• Flexible working: we’re open to working hours outside of 9 - 5 and we can talk through your flexibility requirements at interview stage
• Wellbeing, Thinking & Growth Days: four days a year to to step back from the day-to-day and focus on your own learning and development
• Generous annual leave allowance
• Great family/caring leave entitlements
• Enhanced pension
• Access to our employee savings scheme

Our commitment to Diversity, Equity, Inclusion and Belonging

At Young Lives vs Cancer, we recognise that opportunities for too many people remain a condition of their sex, ethnicity, class, gender identity, disability, sexual orientation – or a combination. This has never been acceptable to us as an organisation. We don’t just accept difference, we value it, celebrate it, nurture it and we thrive because of it.

We’re on a journey to be reflective of the diverse children, young people and families we support. We know we aren’t there yet, and we’re passionately committed to taking actions and making changes to be a truly diverse, inclusive and equitable organisation. This includes taking anti-oppressive action and removing barriers in our recruitment practices. We particularly welcome applications from members of minoritised communities. Our Diversity, Inclusion, Equity and Belonging strategy will tell you more.

We operate an anonymised shortlisting process in our commitment to diversity, equity, inclusion and belonging. CVs can be uploaded, but we won't be able to view them until we invite you for an interview. Instead, we ask you to fully complete the work history sections of the online application form for us to be able to assess you quickly, fairly and objectively.

Accessibility

We’re committed to providing reasonable adjustments throughout our recruitment process and we’ll always aim to be as accommodating as possible.Please let us know in your application form of any adjustments or access requirements we could make to help you with the application process and interview.

#ShowTheSalary #NonGraduatesWelcome

This is an exciting opportunity to join the friendly, dynamic, multi-disciplinary team at the Centre of expertise on child sexual abuse (CSA Centre) as our new Policy Manager. This is a key role within the CSA Centre, central to our ambition to raise awareness of the true scale and nature of sexual abuse and to drive evidence-informed improvements in policy and practice.

About the role:

The CSA Centre aims to reduce the impact of child sexual abuse through improved prevention and better response, and our work in influencing and shaping policy at local, regional and national level is key to that mission.

As our Policy Manager, you will play an important role in developing and delivering the CSA Centre's policy influencing activities over the immediate and longer term, helping us to ensure that our evidence, learning and resources have the widest possible reach and impact at both local and national level.

You will have the opportunity to work closely with the CSA Centre's Senior Management Team and our multi-agency, multi-disciplinary team, enabling you to draw on expertise from a wide range of different professional backgrounds, and with colleagues from across Government and key stakeholder groups.

We are looking for a motivated person with strong skills and experience in policy roles, and the ability to manage an extensive and varied workload to deliver multiple objectives. Policy activity at the CSA Centre is extremely diverse; in any given week you might find yourself joining (or in many cases leading) discussions with other leading charities to agree a joint influencing plan for new government legislation, meeting with senior civil servants to discuss proposed changes to legislation or guidance, working with the Senior Management Team to develop new policy positions on emerging areas of concern, linking up with our specialist practice improvement advisers or research and evaluation team to consider the policy implications of new CSA Centre initiatives… No two days are the same!

As Policy Manager at the CSA Centre you will play a key role in tackling child sexual abuse, alongside the work of our colleagues across practice, research, communications and training. This is important work - the CSA Centre conservatively estimates that one in ten children will experience some form of child sexual abuse before age of 16, and our ambitious programme seeks to improve the knowledge, skills and confidence of professionals (social workers, teachers, social workers, nurses etc.) in identifying and responding to child sexual abuse. We have already made great progress, but there is much more to be done – and we need your help to do it!

This role is currently funded until 31 March 2026, in line with the current grant funding arrangements for the CSA Centre. This will be reviewed in late 2025, as future funding for the CSA Centre from 2026/27 onwards is clarified.

Although this contract has a permanent status, please be aware that this post is subject to funding currently until March 2026 and therefore should this funding not be extended further, you may be subject to a redundancy consultation or a TUPE arrangement. This contract is due to expire on 31.03.26.

Please note due to the high volume of applications for some posts, this advert might close before the displayed closing date. We recommend that you apply for this role as soon as possible.

This is a key leadership role within the CSA Centre, central to our ambition to raise awareness of the true scale and nature of sexual abuse and to drive evidence-informed improvements in policy and practice.

About the role:

The CSA Centre aims to reduce the impact of child sexual abuse through improved prevention and better response, and effective internal and external communication is absolutely central to that mission.

Leading our Communications Team, you will play a key role in developing and delivering the CSA Centre's communication plans over the immediate and longer term, helping us to ensure that our evidence, learning and resources have the widest possible reach into policy and practice at both local and national level.

As a member of the CSA Centre's Senior Management Team, you will work closely with the CSA Centre's multi-agency, multi-disciplinary team, enabling you to draw on expertise from a wide range of different professional backgrounds. You will lead our engagement with communications colleagues from across Government departments and key stakeholder groups.

We are looking for a highly motivated leader with strong skills and significant experience in communication roles, and the ability to manage an extensive and varied workload to deliver multiple objectives. Communication activity at the CSA Centre is extremely diverse; in any given week you might find yourself developing a new strategic approach to disseminating CSA Centre resources throughout practice, leading a briefing session on new research findings for prominent national media outlets, advising senior Government leads on plans for a new awareness raising campaign, working with expert stakeholders to develop national media guidelines for the reporting of child sexual abuse… No two days are the same!

As Assistant Director, Communications, you will play a role tackling child sexual abuse alongside the work of our colleagues across practice, research, policy and training. This is important work - the CSA Centre conservatively estimates that one in ten children will experience some form of child sexual abuse before age of 16, and our ambitious programme seeks to improve the knowledge, skills and confidence of professionals (social workers, teachers, social workers, nurses etc.) in identifying and responding to child sexual abuse. We have already made great progress, but there is much more to be done – and we need your leadership to help us do it!

Although this contract has a permanent status, CSA Centre roles are subject to funding until 31st March 2026, in line with our current grant funding arrangements. This contract is due to expire on 31st March 2026 however this will be reviewed in late 2025, as future funding for CSA Centre from 2026/27 onwards is confirmed. If this funding is not extended further, you may be subject to a redundancy consultation or a TUPE arrangement.

About us

We are the Centre of expertise on child sexual abuse (CSA Centre). Our aim is to reduce the impact of child sexual abuse through improved prevention and better response. To tackle child sexual abuse we must better understand its causes, scope, scale and impact.

Established since 2017, we are a multi-disciplinary team that is funded by the Home Office, hosted by Barnardo's and we work closely with key partners from academic institutions, local authorities, health, education, police and the voluntary sector. We're proudly independent and our team will challenge any barriers, assumptions, taboos and ways of working that prevent us from increasing our understanding and improving our approach to child sexual abuse.

We bring about change by:

• Collating and analysing existing research, policy, practice and the real experiences of those affected, and filling the gaps we identify with new research, insights and analysis;
• Using that evidence and insight to challenge and improve existing policy and practice, develop new approaches and increase everyone's knowledge and confidence to more effectively tackle the issue.

This role is home based with regular travel required, usually to London.

Salary:

The CSA Centre acknowledges that tackling child sexual abuse can feel challenging but is incredibly rewarding and positive when actively making change. Our open working environment ensures that there is support for all employees, across the team and with access to a therapist, if needed. Please do get in touch if you would like to discuss any aspect of this further.

We believe in creating equality of opportunity in the workplace and supporting people to manage their work-life balance; we are therefore are open to offering flexible working arrangements.

The CSA Centre is committed to having a diverse and inclusive workforce. We actively encourage applications from disabled candidates and candidates from Black, Asian and minority ethnic backgrounds, as they are currently under-represented at the CSA Centre.

When completing your application please refer to your skills knowledge and experience in relation to the Person Specification and Job Description.

Please note due to the high volume of applications for some posts, this advert might close before the displayed closing date. We recommend that you apply for this role as soon as possible.