Young People Transformation Lead in Bexhill-on-Sea

This is an exciting opportunity to join a dynamic and vibrant local charity and lead the provision for the transformation of young people's lives in Sidley and Bexhill-On-Sea. Youth work at The Pelham has established itself over the last 6 years with an engaged group of local young people and strong links to local schools, community groups and churches. The foundations are there to further inspire, support and mentor young people in our town as we now look to expand this role to encompass empowering young people across every touchpoint of the charity.

The Pelham is a local Christian charity that enriches lives in real and diverse ways for our community in Sidley, Bexhill. The Pelham aims to benefit the community through our charitable activities and projects, and effective partnership working.

We are looking for someone who is visionary and passionate for young people to build on what has worked well to date and establish new opportunities and activities for local youth to benefit from. We are committed to seeing local young people's lives lived to the full and reaching their potential in a supportive environment.

Following the opening of the basement in September 2023, The Pelham has a designated space for children and young people to call their own. Beyond that, we have a range of opportunities across the wider building and projects of The Pelham that can be accessed, as well as other facilities and resources in the local community.

The Pelham is a fast-paced environment, so we are looking for someone with a positive approach to growth and a solution-focused and person-centred approach. We work closely together as a team and are looking forward to someone bringing their insight for young people into the charity.

Main Purpose of the Role

The Young People Transformation Lead will take the leadership role in the development of opportunities for young people at The Pelham, as part of its charitable work and community service. This senior role will include having vision to develop relevant and appealing opportunities in Bexhill for young people, working together with local partners, including schools and voluntary organisations.

The desired candidate will take on the existing leadership of the weekly youth clubs that are running here already, further enhancing and developing the offer to appeal to more young people and create relevant opportunities. We envisage a person-centred approach to young people's care, with their mental health and physical wellbeing as key priorities. We believe a holistic model of support is needed, with the growth of mentoring and advocacy forming part of our vision for the outworking of the role.

There is a management requirement with this role. Firstly, in the form of leading the team of youth volunteers, as well as strengthening the team. Further, we see that this role will look to expand to a wider youth work staff team within 12-18 months. Secondly, this person will form part of the existing senior leadership team at The Pelham, alongside the other service leaders, in overseeing the charity as a whole. Lastly, the incoming postholder will also take on the role of the designated safeguarding lead for the youth work and young people within The Pelham.

There will also be administrative responsibilities specific to this role, including safeguarding and risk assessing all activities and events as well as the young people that you will be working with. The role will also involve hosting a range of regular sessions specifically for young people, as well as empowering and encouraging young people, in line with the vision and values of The Pelham as a charity.

Current outworking of the role includes:

• Running two after-school youth clubs (3.30pm-5pm) for secondary school aged children on a Monday (years 7-8) and Tuesday (Years 9-11) supported by a team of volunteers and Pelham staff. Currently, 15 young people on average attend each session.
• Running a lunchtime youth group on a Tuesday (1pm-2pm) for home educated students at secondary school age.
• Working within the local secondary school's pastoral care team on one lunchtime a week.
• Development of activities for The Basement, which is the designated space for children and young people at The Pelham alongside other youth providers already based here.
• Providing a range of activities and events in the school holidays.
• Working in partnership with two local organisations to deliver a town centre youth club on a Thursday evening.

Key Tasks

• To run youth activities at The Pelham on a weekly basis as detailed above and create a safe environment for young people to be at The Pelham, including safeguarding requirements and good practice.
• Ensure the development of the youth service is in line with the National Youth Strategy's 10-year vision, with a particular focus on:
• Empowering young people's agency and voices.
• Expanding access to enriching youth work and trusted adult support.
• Strengthening workforce capacity and quality of youth provision.
• Improving pathways into education, training, employment, and life skills.
• Creating safe, inclusive spaces for young people and community connection.
• To provide consistent and wise input into the lives of local young people living in our community, giving them purpose, value and significance, especially those that are most challenging. The mental, physical and spiritual health and wellbeing of young people is the key focus of the pastoral care.
• This includes working with neurodivergent young people and those with SEN to ensure all of our offering is accessible for all.
• Recruit, train, retain and supervise volunteers and youth workers, ensuring access to high-quality training and safeguarding standards. Further to facilitate youth worker professional development, mentoring, and reflective practice.
• To grow the transformational offer for young people at The Pelham, inside and outside of the youth work activities, to empower the young people that we work with already. This may include the mentoring and coaching for young people to enable them to reach their health, educational and social goals.
• To develop partnerships specifically focused on the usage of the basement during the daytime. This is focused around exploring connections with the home educated community, and those outside of mainstream education.
• To establish key links with existing youth provision in the town, alongside the schools, voluntary groups, statutory partners and faith groups.
• To work alongside the CEO to provide evaluation of impact for the youth work to assist with grant funding applications (e.g. feedback from the young people).
• To work alongside the pastoral care team at Bexhill Academy to provide support to students at one lunchtime break a week.
• To explore and respond to the local and national challenges that young people are facing in their generation, at school and in their wider lives and relationships.

Intro to The Pelham

The charity has been growing over the last 11 years and remains a visionary and ambitious organisation, where meaningful impact is seen on a daily basis in our community. We are excited to open up this opportunity to join our team and are looking for someone who is full of life, vision and compassion.

As a charity and team our core values are to be:

• Welcoming – We welcome everyone in with love and respect.
• Relational – We build strong and trusted connections within our community.
• Generous – We choose to be generous as we look to bless people we meet.
• Authentic – We aim to have integrity, openness and compassion in all we do.
• Ambitious – We create sustainable and transformational opportunities that impact people for good.

As well as leading the youth work, this postholder will join part of The Pelham's project leadership team alongside the other four core projects:

• Our volunteer-run Coffee Lounge is open 5 days a week, providing a safe and warm space in the community to over 150 customers each week.
• The Pelham as a Community Hub welcomes over 400 people through our doors each week and hire our spaces out to over 60 different local organisations that use The Pelham as a base for their valuable assistance to help people in need locally. The range of organisations covers the voluntary, statutory and small business community to create a vibrant and dynamic space.
• RunningSpace is our suicide prevention project with a vision to champion life and beat suicide through walk2run groups. We currently run sessions in five locations, across East Sussex and Kent. We also host suicide prevention training too on a regular basis.
• The Pelham Counselling Service offers individual and group work therapy sessions with its team of 9 counsellors. It offers bursaries and a flexible service to best meet the needs of local people.

In joining the team, collaborative working will be at the heart of the development of the charity for young people, including group therapy sessions for young people, mentoring, suicide prevention work and volunteering and employability pathways.

Application Process

Make a full application via Indeed, providing the information requested and answers to the questions asked. Shortlisted candidates will then be invited to an interview at The Pelham, which will include a coffee in the Coffee Lounge, a tour and interview at The Pelham, where candidates will be asked to present on a pre-given topic and respond to some scenarios. Second stage interviews will include attending a youth session on a Tuesday afternoon alongside the existing staff and volunteer team.