Youth Voice and Engagement Intern

About the Role

JPF aims to amplify the voices of young people across London and Essex, and we are committed to harnessing their ideas, knowledge and life experiences to influence the way we work as a grant-maker.

As a charitable organisation, founded to support young people, it is essential that young people are part of our work and decision-making; from Board level through to our programme delivery. We aim to provide young people with the resources and opportunities to empower them to do great things, and this role is central to enabling us to do this.

The Youth Voice and Engagement Intern role is a new post that will help us grow our youth voice and youth engagement work within the Foundation in line with our new strategic priorities. This role sits in the Executive Team, and will work closely with the Executive Assistant, as well as colleagues within our Communications and Operations teams. There will be regular opportunities to work collaboratively on projects with other departments and stakeholders.

This is a twelve-month paid internship to begin during March 2025. The successful candidate must be able to take up the post by Monday 25th March 2025, preferably earlier.

About the Internship

You will be part of the Jack Petchey Internship Programme along with 20 other interns, all of whom are employed by a range of youth organisations in London and Essex. Alongside your main work duties there will be a number of development opportunities. These include a residential conference to launch the internship programme; four professional development workshops throughout the year; and a celebration event at the end of the programme.

In addition to your paid salary, you will receive a training bursary of £1,000. This bursary can be used for approved training. We will also match you with an external mentor who will support you with your professional development throughout the year.

Training days and events take place in person in London. As well as carrying out the main duties of the job (as outlined in this booklet) the successful candidate will be required to take part in all training opportunities offered as part of this programme. 

About You

If you are passionate advocate for young people, a strong communicator and an organised individual looking for a varied role in a fast-paced organisation, we want to hear from you! We are actively seeking someone who believes in the power and value of young people’s voices to influence change, and will prioritise this above your prior work experience or qualifications. If this sounds like you, please do consider applying for this role.

About Your Responsibilities
The Youth Voice and Engagement Intern will be responsible for supporting our three major youth engagement programmes, as well as a number of other youth voice initiatives across the Foundation.

1 Youth Consultation Panel
The Youth Consultation Panel (YCP) was formed in 2019, and currently consists of twelve young people, all of whom have directly benefited from one or more of our programmes. This group of passionate young people meet once a month to share their opinions and inform the work of our Senior Management Team and Board of Trustees. The postholder will:

• Be responsible for the general administration of the YCP, through preparing agendas and minutes for monthly meetings and quarterly in-person days, fielding general enquiries from YCP members, processing travel expenses, coordinating event attendance and tracking the group’s volunteering hours.

• Support the YCP to develop into a ‘shadow board’, which will include facilitating their participation in partnership grant making and management, as well as their link to our Board of Trustees.

• Identify opportunities for the YCP to support with ad hoc pieces of work across the organisation, and administrate these projects as required.

• Assist with the recruitment and induction processes for new YCP members and JPF’s Youth Trustee.

• Support the Communications team to design and disseminate an annual YCP survey.

2 Jack Petchey Achiever Network

The Achiever Network (AN) is a 12-month personal development programme that we run for up to 35 young people each year. Participants are invited to apply for a year-long training course, which includes a weekend residential, training days and mentoring. The postholder will:

• Assist the Operations Officer with the general administration of the AN programme, including preparation for training days and attendance at these if required.

• Coordinate AN volunteers for both internal and external events, including circulating parental permission forms and briefing sheets etc.

• Oversee the administration of 50/50 grants (an opportunity for AN graduates to invest in a meaningful cause), by supporting young people with their applications, collating details for Board approval and preparing the corresponding grant offer letters.

• Assist with end-of-programme preparations such as the AN graduation ceremony and yearbook.

• Help to design and implement the recruitment process for young participants on the next Achiever Network cohort.

• Support with the evaluation of the Achiever Network programme.

3  Alumni Network
The Alumni Network is a community for those who’ve graduated from our Achiever Network or Internship Programme. It is a way for graduates to remain connected to the Foundation, and for them to give back to other young people as they take their next steps. Launched in September 2024, the network is in its early stages of development. The postholder will:

• Be responsible for the day-to-day administration of the JPF Alumni Network, including: coordinating 2 annual networking events, training opportunities and peer-to-peer mentoring for the cohorts, draft and send letters about opportunities.

• Support the growth of the JPF Alumni Network by identifying and recruiting new members.

• Moderate the JPF Alumni Network online portal, by ensuring that the webpages and resources are up to date and creating new content as required.

• Coordinate and provide written copy for the JPF Alumni Network newsletter, and source case studies, articles and opportunities via our partner organisations.

• Oversee the JPF Alumni Network database on Salesforce, including handling sign-ups, contact details, permissions and any necessary data cleansing.

• Act as the main point of contact for enquiries, communications and requests from all JPF Alumni. Alumni Network Other Responsibilities The postholder will have the opportunity to work on a number of other youth voice initiatives across each of the teams at JPF:

4 Other Responsibilites

• Support the Communications team with the following:

 Designing our next youth survey and disseminating it to schools and youth organisations.

 Amplifying youth voice by facilitating meetings between young people and key external decision-makers (MPs, mayors, councillors etc.).

 Developing an engagement strategy for JPF’s network of patrons, ambassadors and influencers.

 Engaging young people through our creative competitions (cartoon competitions etc.).

 Monitoring and sharing relevant sector news and developments with the JPF team that affect young people.

• Help the Grants team with research to identify youth organisations, community groups and charities based in London and Essex who support young people that are currently underrepresented in our Achievement Awards programme.

• Assist the Partnerships team in conducting their 6-month post-internship survey, and researching and contacting former participants in the Jack Petchey Internship Programme.

• Work with the Events team to increase the number of young performers at our Achievement Award events.

• Support the Operations team with all activities involving young people on-site at Dockmaster’s House (or elsewhere), supporting with health & safety briefings and risk assessments as required. As the post sits within the Executive team, general administrative support to the Executive Assistant and Chief Executive Officer may also be required.

These are the normal duties which the charity requires from the position. However, it is necessary for all staff to be flexible and all employees will be required from time to time to perform other duties as may be required by JPF.

The postholder will work at all times within the policies, procedures and values of JPF, in particular Safeguarding, Health and Safety, Data Protection and Publicity Consent policies.