Senior Innovation & Projects Officer- Sheffield

Save the Children UK has an exciting opportunity for a proactive and organised individual with project management experience to join us as our Senior Innovation and Projects Officer – Sheffield where you will work with the Sheffield Early Learning Community as part of a partnership with SCUK.

Please note this role is based in Sheffield and will require the successful candidate to also reside in Sheffield.

This is a fixed term contract running until December 2024 (21 months).

About Us

Save the Children UK believes every child deserves a future. In the UK and around the world, we work every day to give children a healthy start in life, the opportunity to learn and protection from harm. When crisis strikes, and children are most vulnerable, we are always among the first to respond and the last to leave. We ensure children's unique needs are met and their voices are heard. We deliver lasting results for millions of children, including those hardest to reach.

About the role

As a Senior Innovation and Projects Officer, you will be leading innovation and co-designing projects relating to the Sheffield Early Learning Community partnership. There will be opportunities to build relationships and engage with a wide range of groups and networks out in the community as well as parent volunteering groups. You will be co-ordinating, facilitating and meetings and will have the chance to be really involved in developing and testing approaches that will help these groups.

The Sheffield Early Learning Community is part of the Early Learning Communities programme, which began in 2018 in partnership between Save the Children and local partners across the UK. The programme aims to make a sustainable difference to the lives of children growing up in poverty by taking a whole-system and evidence-based approach to improving early learning outcomes.

By bringing together and supporting schools, statutory bodies, local charities, parents and children, and looking at the root causes of issues affecting outcomes, Early Learning Communities seek to enable communities to make a sustainable different to the lives of children growing up in poverty.

In this role, you will:

• Lead and project manage distinct pieces of work including (where appropriate) the introduction of new programmes and initiatives to align services and build a continuous pipeline of support for children
• Build strong relationships with children and families, engaging them in the development and delivery of local partnerships as well as identifying opportunities to contribute to our Local System Change ambition
• Develop and manage effective communication strategies
• Support the Lead with managing information flow in a timely and accurate manner to enable the building and maintaining of strategic and operational relationships with delivery partners
• Be responsible for project and innovation work in the Sheffield Early Learning Community. Working with local partners to do this, including; instigating and nurturing relationships, managing projects, developing networks, providing coaching and support for great implementation practice, ensuring alignment to Save the Children's and the Local Systems Change framework, providing strategic support and advice, convening groups and capacity building

About you

To be successful, it is important that you have:

• Considerable experience of engaging partners and developing and managing complex projects and programmes
• Excellent project management skills- able to support ELC lead and take ownership of projects when required
• Experience in engaging children and families and supporting them to share their experiences, and of co-developing approaches with practitioners, children and families

• Understanding of systems change theory and approaches.
• Commitment to Save the Children's vision, mission and values.

To learn more about the position, please review the Job Description in the attached Documents.

What we offer you:

Working for a charity provides one of the best benefits there is – a sense of purpose and reward for helping others. However, we understand the importance of giving back to our employees to ensure a happy and healthy working environment and work/life balance.

• We focus on flexibility, inclusion, collaboration, health and wellbeing both in and outside of work.
• We provide a wide range of benefits which will reward your hard work, motivate you, and inspire you to work to improve the lives of children every day. You can read more about our benefits here.

Closing date: Wednesday 8th March at midnight

Interviews: Week commencing 20th March

Please note:

To avoid disappointment, you are advised to submit your application as soon as possible as we reserve the right to close the vacancy early if a high volume of applications are received. This is to ensure that we can manage application levels whilst maintaining a positive candidate experience. Unfortunately once a vacancy has closed, we are unable to consider further applications.

Ways of Working:

Remote First – The majority of our roles can be performed remotely, however you may work from the office as often as you wish. Whilst you will be predominantly working from home, we may at times require you to come to your contracted office (up to 2-4 days per month or 6-8 days per quarter). Note: This will be agreed with your Line Manager and team. This is intended to be time spent on collaborating with colleagues and relationship building.

On-site – There are certain roles that cannot be performed remotely and so your role will be based in an office location and you may occasionally be able to work from home.

Flexible Working - We are happy to discuss flexible working options at interview.

Commitment to Diversity & Inclusion:

Save the Children UK believes in a world that is fair, inclusive and equitable where all children have the opportunity to change their world. We apply this to our workforce and we are committed to developing and supporting a diverse, equitable, and inclusive organisation where all employees have a sense of belonging and feel that they can be "Free to Be Me". We are not looking for just one type of person - we want to recruit people who can add fresh perspectives, innovative ideas or challenge that disrupts the risk of group think.

We are especially interested in people whose childhood experiences - of life on a low income, of migration, of being in a racialised community, of the care system, of being LGBT+ or in an LGBT+ family or living with (or with someone with) a disability - help us to see things we might otherwise miss. Whatever your story is we want to hear it because we know that different voices, ideas, perspectives and knowledge, working together will enable us to better the lives of children around the world. This is the reason why we are all here.

To see our full statement please visit this link: https://jobs.savethechildren.org.uk/our-policies/diversity/

Salary Structure:

Save the Children is committed to paying staff in a fair and equitable way and will benchmark all salary offers in line with the pay of existing staff. To see our full offer please visit this link: https://jobs.savethechildren.org.uk/what-we-offer/

Interview Expenses:

Candidates should note that unfortunately it is not our policy to reimburse expenses accrued when attending interviews at Save the Children UK unless you are requested to attend an interview in an alternative location to where the role is based.

Pre-employment Checks:

Any Employment with Save the Children UK will be subject to the following checks prior to your start date:

• a satisfactory police record check to include a Disclosure and Barring Service (DBS) check and/or an International Criminal Record Check (If applicable)
• receipt of satisfactory references
• proof of eligibility to work in the national location for this role

If you have any questions, we have an FAQ section. For anything else you can email us on: careers@savethechildren.org.uk