Mosaic LGBT+ Young Persons' Trust

Who we are

Background to Mosaic LGBT+ Young Persons’ Trust

Mosaic’s vision is to build a strong, cohesive LGBT+ community that is safe from abuse, free from prejudice, healthy and making a positive contribution to society.

Over the last 20 years, we have supported, educated and inspired over 7500 young persons. Before the COVID virus changed the way we operated our service, our weekly Wednesday evening LGBT Youth Club was so popular and well attended that we added a second session on a Sunday afternoon. Each session attracted 20 – 30 young LGBT+ persons, aged 13 – 19, from across London. Coined by our members as ‘Mosaic’, the Youth Club has been regularly referred to as being ‘home’ or ‘like family.’ We are supported by a dedicated team of LGBT+ volunteer staff role models who run workshops and forums on a range of matters from sexual health to Queer literature.

Mosaic has also developed ground-breaking services for the young LGBT+ community we serve, which are co-produced with our own members. Our successes include;

- The UK’s first LGBT+ Youth Summer Camp and LGBT+ Youth Winter Retreat.

- A range of LGBT+ Events including London’s only LGBT+ under 18s exclusive Pride Prom and ‘Homoween’ Ball. The events offer a fun, safe, inclusive & alcohol-free environment for LGBT+ young persons to socialise with their LGBT+ peers. In addition, young persons learn about and experience drag culture or perform themselves, inspiring future generations of artists and performers.

Mosaic has already been successful in securing the following funding:

- Awards for All to deliver our LGBT+ Youth Summer Camp and Winter Retreat.

- Global Fund for Children to cover costs of rent to deliver youth services in a central location attracting LGBT+ young persons from across London.

- Through partnership working in Harrow we deliver Heads Up intervention helping young LGBT+ persons to address their mental health needs.

- Lambeth Council to deliver Proud Lambeth in partnership with Metro Charity.

Within a couple of days of lockdown back in March, we had moved our entire services on-line. We offered daily mindfulness sessions for young persons struggling to settle down and focus on school and college work. We moved our popular yoga sessions on-line. We moved our youth club on-line. We added some new sessions like on-line gaming, e-zine design and so on. As lockdown has started to lift we have been able to meet with small groups of young persons. One activity we have started is a regular cycle club and we have provided new bikes to those young persons who did not have a bike.

About the current board

Mosaic was originally part of Brent Council’s Youth Service. When that ended Mosaic LGBT Youth Centre was established as a Charity Incorporated Organisation 1166676 in April 2016. The Charity renamed itself Mosaic LGBT+ Young Person’s Trust in April 2020. The Board currently has 9 trustees and you can read all about them on our website. 

All of our Trustee roles are voluntary and unpaid, though we do pay reasonable expenses. Our normal appointment length is 3 years, and Trustees can serve a second term by agreement.

Over the next three years, we aim to establish firm foundations so that we can sustain and grow our services and programmes even more.

We are a small charity. We employ full time our Executive Director and Assistant Director. In addition, we have occasional part-time staff working on specific projects. We have a great group of volunteers who dedicate time to the Youth Clubs and the other activities. Our Trustees need to want to be involved. We want you to be passionate about improving the lives of LGBT+ youth. We also want you to be able to commit time to get involved in our Trustee Board, picking up some of the tasks from there and working on them in your own time. We would also expect you to want to attend the Youth Club or some of the special events we run at least a few times a year. While that’s difficult during the COVID period once things become more normal there will be an opportunity to do that

In particular, we are looking for one trustee to take the position of Treasurer.   You will see from the job description that we need someone with business skills and financial acumen - accountancy experience isn't an essential criterion.

We are aware that having a diversity of voices on our board is essential. As the three trustees who are leaving us to happen to be women, we are keen to address the gender imbalance. As an LGBT+ charity, we wish to ensure we have members from the trans community on our board. We would also really value a trustee who has benefited from Mosaic’s services.  Whilst these opportunities are open to all, we would encourage women, former Mosaic young persons and trans applicants to apply for these opportunities.