Are you looking for an exciting opportunity and the chance to make a real and lasting difference for others? Join Kinship, Britain’s biggest charity supporting kinship carers. 

Kinship carers are strong, capable and fiercely determined to ensure they get what they need to support their kinship family. And we want to support them to feel confident to do that.  

Kinship is the leading kinship care charity in England and Wales. We support, campaign and raise awareness of kinship care and the issues affecting kinship carers every day.  

Kinship care begins in crisis. A child whose parents are unable to care for them, for whatever reason. It’s frightening, confusing and heart-breaking. Instinctively, a loved one steps in – a grandparent, brother, sister, aunt, uncle or family friend. They are now a kinship carer, bringing up the children they love. It’s life changing and challenging raising children who’ve been hurt or neglected, but kinship carers do it anyway because they put the children first. 

Kinship have been awarded funding from the Department for Education to deliver the first ever national training programme to support kinship carers in their caring role. We are at the start of that journey. 

About the role:

Kinship are seeking to recruit experienced event co-ordinators with a whole range of skills and great energy to join our brand-new training team. They will be responsible for delivering this first ever programme of its type supporting kinship carers across England in their caring role. 

As a pivotal part of the team, you’ll be supporting delivery of high-quality in-person and online training events across England. You’ll be the first point of contact for the team and be experienced and responsive in dealing with enquiries. You’ll be used to working with suppliers and have proven experience of planning, co-ordinating and supporting the delivery of large events. You’ll bring significant working experience of using Microsoft tools, and other platforms and technology including Zoom. You’ll have a positive, can-do approach and the ability to work with initiative, being curious and always thinking ahead to anticipate need and deal with issues.  

Collaboration will be key to your approach, and you’ll be detail orientated and be great at managing your time and priorities, and working to consistently high standards. You’ll plan, co-ordinate and support the successful delivery of all our online and in-person events, including being available and involved as needed on site. 

In this role, you’ll travel across England and may have overnight stays from time to time.  We offer training and support to enable you to be successful in your role and we’re happy to discuss requirements if you have kinship caring responsibilities.

Key responsibilities include:

• Providing highly effective project management and administrative support to the training programme, including supplier communication, coordinating programme logistics and delivery of all relevant general and financial administration tasks, e.g. scheduling meetings, providing agendas, writing briefings, minute-taking, monitoring expenditure and organising events, training and workshops.

• Being the first point of contact for the team, for both internal and external purposes, communicating effectively with kinship carers, internal training team, external delivery partners and other stakeholders to coordinate and confirm all training activity.

Essential requirements include:

• Proven experience in event planning and management. You will need previous experience being responsible for organising large events (over 50 people). 

• Experience of developing and implementing administrative systems and processes that enable team effectiveness. You will need a minimum of 1 year’s administration experience. 

Key dates:

• Closing date: Tuesday 28 May, 9am 

• Interviews: w/c 10 June 

Please see the Training Officer job pack for more information, a full job description and details of our application process. 

If you would like further information or an informal chat about this role, please contact Kate Kayley, Training and Learning Lead, kate.kayley@kinship.org.uk  

Please note that Kinship reserves the right to close a recruitment campaign earlier than the advertised date where we have received sufficient applications. 

If you think you can make a difference for kinship carers, have the experience and skills we seek and the drive and positive approach to succeed then we would love to hear from you!

Kinship are an equal opportunities employer. We warmly welcome applications from appropriately qualified people from all sections of the community and aim to promote diversity.     

How to apply:

Apply for this role via the BeApplied recruitment platform here. In addition to your CV, you will be asked to answer four short questions. You will have 250 words per answer.

1. With reference to the job description, describe how your experience and values are a good fit for this role at Kinship?  This is your opportunity to really sell your passion for social justice and our charity.  

2. Tell us about your experience in coordinating and supporting large events across multiple sites to diverse audiences.  Share examples that demonstrate the skills and experience you have which would support you in this role.

3. Using examples, tell us about how you manage deadlines and keep projects on time when you are planning multiple events at once (in-person and online)?

4. Describe three things you do in your work that are essential in developing and maintaining relationships with a wide range of people (both internal and external colleagues and stakeholders).  Use examples to support your answer.

Job details:

•  Job Title:  Training Officer

• Responsible to: Training and Learning Lead  

• Contract: 12 months with extension dependent on funding (plus 1 year, plus 1 year)  

• Location:  Home-based or Office based (Vauxhall) with regular travel across England 

• Working Hours: 28 hours a week  

• Salary: £25,000 per annum pro rata (plus £3,323 London weighting, if  applicable)