Policy Manager

NSUN is a charity and a membership organisation. We are a network of grassroots, user-led mental health groups and people with lived experience of mental ill-health, distress and trauma. We connect, support and amplify the voices and work of our membership and work towards the redistribution of power and resource in mental health. 

We are looking for someone with relevant skills to develop and deliver NSUN’s policy strategy and policy/campaigns projects. NSUN takes a critical, political and rights-based approach to policy work at, centering social justice, anti-oppression, and the social and material determinants of distress and trauma. We want to work intersectionally, and do not consider ourselves to be a “single-issue” organisation. 

The Policy Manager will play a key role in creating collaborative spaces with members and partners to build momentum and sustainability for lived experience-led mental health policy and campaigns work. Though we do analyse, respond to, and engage with traditional policy mechanisms such as parliamentary processes and legislative change, our focus is more on building an alternative approach and challenging traditional silos at a time where the external environment is one of hostile and unjust structures, systems, and legislation. 

We are keen to hear from people with less traditional policy experience, such as experience of community organising: while this is not an entry-level position, you do not necessarily need to have traditional policy and influencing experience. NSUN is a user-led organisation, and all staff and trustees have lived experience of mental ill-health, distress or trauma.