Participation and Involvement Manager

Kinship carers are at the heart of everything we do. This role will build on existing practice across the organisation and lead on the implementation and further development of a participation and involvement framework, enabling a large and diverse range of kinship carers to share their views and expertise meaningfully, safely and effectively to shape Kinship’s activity. It will also support our growing participation and involvement activity which involves children, young people and young adults with experience of growing up in kinship care.

You will work closely with kinship carers and colleagues across the organisation to understand the key challenges and opportunities with embedding participatory methods, including co-production and co-design, which improve Kinship’s work – right from the design and delivery of our advice and support services through to influencing policy and campaigning for change.

With support from colleagues, you will act as the key cross-organisational adviser on participation and involvement practice, supporting and empowering colleagues to develop the skills and knowledge they need to embed a consistent approach to the involvement of kinship carers to best suit the needs of their roles.

As an enthusiastic and engaging facilitator, and an advocate for participatory methods, you will sensitively and skillfully work alongside kinship carers and colleagues to deliver high quality involvement activity which supports the charity’s mission and aims. You will also be an experienced project manager, ensuring all activity is appropriately monitored and evaluated, and aligned with best practice around equality and diversity, remuneration, safeguarding and governance.

• Refine and further develop an existing organisational participation and involvement framework which supports staff to meaningfully, safely and effectively involve kinship carers in their work.
• Design and implement a plan to embed effective practice based on the framework across Kinship, building a positive organisational culture and providing appropriate training, upskilling and support to colleagues to ensure consistency of delivery and experience for kinship carers.
• Lead a cross-organisational working group of people with relevant lived, learned and professional experiences to support and advise on embedding high-quality participation and involvement activity.
• Work closely with colleagues across the whole organisation to understand their bespoke needs, strengths and requirements around implementing participatory methods in their day-to-day work, and develop strategic relationships with colleagues in areas with more extensive existing participatory or adjacent activity (e.g. research, volunteering).
• Develop and recruit a network of people with lived experience interested in being more intensively involved in participatory activities, with a focus on increasing the diversity of people working with us.
• With support, act as the point person and key adviser on participation and involvement practice for colleagues across the organisation, regularly sharing best practice and learning opportunities.
• Lead on establishing and ensuring consistency in the monitoring, evaluation and reporting of this activity using our CRM system to understand how it delivers impact for individuals and contributes to the charity’s mission and aims.
• In particular, curate a range of opportunities and structures for kinship carers to share their views and insights to support the ongoing delivery of a national training and support offer for kinship carers in England, and lead on the delivery of specific participatory projects as and when required.
• Support Kinship to develop our emerging participation and involvement activity with children, young people and young adults with experience of growing up in kinship care.
• Follow organisational policies and procedures, and establish new ones, which ensure our participation and involvement work aligns with best practice around equality and diversity, remuneration and payment, safeguarding and governance.
• Map activity across the sector and beyond to ensure we are constantly learning from this and improving, and lead on identifying external opportunities to share our own activity and learnings.

The successful candidate will have:

• Experience managing and leading the delivery of participation or involvement activity with people with lived experience of social issues.
• A commitment to meaningful participation and involvement activity, including a nuanced understanding of the individual and organisational opportunities and challenges associated with this.
• Knowledge of models, methodologies and approaches used in high quality participation and involvement activity, and strong skills in creative facilitation – particularly with groups.
• An understanding of kinship care and how this may impact on kinship carers’ involvement with Kinship and our activity.
• Experience of effective project management with strong attention to detail and organisational skills.
• Excellent written and verbal communication skills, building trust and positive relationships quickly with new people and an ability to represent Kinship, alongside those with lived experience, with senior external stakeholders.
• An empathetic, inclusive and collaborative approach to working alongside others, including the ability to problem-solve, mediate, hold challenging conversations, and create safe and supportive environments for discussion.
• Ability to juggle a complex workload in a fast-paced environment with often competing priorities, responding to unforeseen challenges and opportunities.
• Experience using Salesforce or similar CRM systems.

Desirable, but not essential, criteria include:

• Personal experience of kinship care
• Experience of working directly with kinship carers
• Experience within a charity or children’s social care environment