Director of Youth Work

Are you passionate about youth work with leadership experience? We are looking for a Director of Youth Work to provide effective leadership and strategic direction for the Youth Work team within FAST London. The Director of Youth Work will sit in the Leadership Team, working in collaboration with the CEO and managers to ensure FAST’s overall strategic objectives and desired outcomes are met.

Who we are

FAST London (FAST) is a Christian youth charity based on the Patmore Estate focused on supporting 10–19-year-olds from deprived backgrounds in Battersea and South Lambeth. Our mission is to help young people succeed by creating safe spaces and providing diversionary and inspiring activities that develop resilience and inspire hope in efforts to achieve this. We build relationships with young people by engaging with them in environments where they feel most comfortable whilst doing activities they love. Once relationships are developed, we work with young people and stakeholders to overcome challenges and unlock potential.We also provide opportunities for young people to explore the Christian faith as we believe it transforms lives. We serve people without regard to their religion or ethnic background.

Context for this role

This is a pivotal moment for FAST as the need for our work has expanded due to more young people falling into poverty and struggling in schools. Whilst capacity is a challenge with 60% cut in public youth programmes over the last decade (YMCA 2020). We are still growing strong and are able to work with 300 young people annually. However, our desire is to continue this work of establishing and growing a healthy youth organisation that provides excellent & vibrant youth work that makes a difference to young people’s lives and produces healthy staff that are equipped and empowered to do the job they love. Therefore, the need to grow our team is quite pressing. We are in search for someone with experience leading youth work and developing a healthy organisation who can help strengthen our work here in very significant ways, with a particular gifting in thinking strategically and working hard to get results.

We would love to hear from you if you:

Qualities and Attributes

• Are a committed Christian who loves young people with a heart for the most vulnerable and hard-to-reach
• Have excellent interpersonal and communication skills that inspire confidence and develop a culture of excellence.
• Are strategic thinker, with an ability to grasp detail and translate ideas into strategies and deliverable outcomes.
• Are highly organised, adaptable, problem solver with a focus on results.
• Can think systematically with knowledge of systems and governance of systems

Experience

• Have experience of working in senior leadership in an organisation and a track record of driving strategic vision to reality
• Can deliver frontline youth work in group sessions as well as one-to-one mentoring- experience delivering football projects is ideal
• Have experience in project and/or operations management and a track record for developing the systems, quality assurance and management that support organisational excellence;
• Have experience of managing Safeguarding and Risk within an organisation.
• Have experience of strategic project design, development and evaluation
• Have experience in finance and managing budgets

This post is subject to an occupational requirement that the holder is a practising Christian under Part 1 of Schedule 9 to the Equality Act 2010.