Policy Officer

Are you passionate about influencing people to improve the lives of others? Are you a skilled communicator, able to get across complex ideas succinctly and impactfully, adapting your style to suit a range or audiences? Do you have a proven track record of engaging with policy makers & other key stakeholders at local and national levels to get key messages heard, understood and acted on? If so, this role could be for you.

Our policy work plays a pivotal role in pushing for widespread change that will help prevent epilepsy deaths and gain greater recognition of the life-long impact these sudden deaths have on communities. So we’re looking for someone who has experience of engaging with and influencing policy-makers, preferably in the charity or health/care sector. This is an exciting opportunity for someone interested in building on established relationships with the NHS and local authorities across the country who are keen to use SUDEP Action’s expertise and tools to make change. There is much to do in challenging circumstances. Our national campaign has global support with real opportunity with a new Parliament to build back to our level of influence to our experiences before the dramatic impact of Brexit, the COVID pandemic and cost of living crisis.  Working closely alongside and reporting to the Director of Policy and Influencing (who has nearly 3 decades of expertise), you will learn the field to deliver high quality policy and campaigning for the charity.

Engaging confidently with people and feeling comfortable in adapting your approach to different audiences is a key skill for this role – epilepsy, and in particular epilepsy bereavement is a challenging area to gain attention and change, so you’ll need tenacity, creativity and passion to succeed. You’ll have experience in writing punchy, evidence-based communications that have personal stories at the heart.

Building positive supporter connections is at the heart of what we do at SUDEP Action, so setting a positive example of this through your work and actions, and demonstrating the importance of maintaining strong, personalised relationships is key. You’ll be ready to record, monitor and evaluate the impact and engagement with policy work, so this feeds back into how the charity operates. The successful candidate will be able to build on current processes and successes to grow our engagement across all policy activities and campaigns.

More information about the role can be found in the SUDEP Action Job Pack which is downloadable with this advert once you click on Quick Apply.