Research and Youth Understanding Officers

Reports to:           Head of Evidence, Youth Endowment Fund

Salary:                  £30,500 - £32,000

Location:              Central London

Contracts:           Full time. There are two roles being advertised here: The Youth Understanding Officer is permanent and the Research Officer starts with a one-year contract.

About the Youth Endowment Fund

The Youth Endowment Fund is a bold new attempt to put early intervention at the heart of efforts to tackle youth offending.

In recent years violent crime has risen significantly. Homicides, assaults, robberies and offences involving weapons have all seen sustained growth. We have also seen large increases in violent crime involving children and young people. This is a tragedy. Every child captured in these numbers is an important member of our community and society has a duty to protect them.

The Youth Endowment Fund is a charity with a £200m endowment and a mission that matters. Founded by youth charity Impetus and its partners, the Early Intervention Foundation and the Social Investment Business, we exist to prevent children and young people from getting caught up in violent crime. We do this by finding the very best ways to prevent youth violence, funding great initiatives and working to scale them up and spread great ideas.

Research and evidence are at the heart of our charity’s mission. We want to be the go-to place for evidence on the lives of children affected by youth crime and violence, its causes, and what works to prevent it. The research and youth understanding team are responsible for commissioning and producing research to inform the YEF’s understanding of what works to reduce violent youth crime and to help us better understand the lives of young people vulnerable to youth violence, and what this means for the YEF’s work.

Task Description

We’re looking for passionate researchers who are committed to ensuring that evidence and a deep understanding of young people are central to everything that we do. Your job will be to support the commissioning and delivery of a programme of qualitative and quantitative research. This research will support the YEF’s understanding of youth crime and its drivers. It will also include boosting our understanding of the characteristics, backgrounds and lives of the children and communities affected by youth crime and violence.

We are appointing two research officers, one who will be predominantly focused on the YEF’s broad programme of research, and one who will be predominantly focused on the YEF’s work to better understand young people who are vulnerable to violent crime.

Key Responsibilities

Working as part of team, we want two people who can: 

• Assist in commissioning and producing research to help us better understand what works to reduce violent youth crime.

• Engage with and understand the experiences and needs of people affected by violent youth crime, including young people and their families, across England and Wales.

• Help manage the YEF’s comprehensive programme of research and youth understanding activity. 

• Help track and maintain relationships with academics, government analysts, researchers and other experts producing work that is relevant to the YEF.

• Help ensure that research and youth understanding informs all of the YEF’s work, including its thematic and place-based grant-making, behaviour change and policy work.

• Help design the very best ways for us to do our research.

• Contribute to a range of published work, including research reports, briefings and regular blog posts, looking at new forms of communicating and visualisation of complex information for a wide range of audiences.

• Work collaboratively with a range of external partners, including central government, local bodies and other research organisations, to enhance our understanding of what works to reduce violent youth crime and in delivering our broader research programme.

About You

You are this sort of person:

• You are a naturally very curious person that is confident with quantitative and/or qualitative research. You have expertise in a range of quantitative and/or qualitative research methods. You can provide examples of how you have practically used these skills.

• You are an excellent communicator. You love to communicate research to a diverse range of audiences, many of whom are not experts.

• You’re able to work independently and as part of a team. You get satisfaction from supporting your colleagues and meeting goals together but are self-motivated and can work independently.

• You are a highly effective project manager. You are effective at managing projects from beginning to end, whether they are delivered internally or externally.

• You win people over. You can build great partnerships and are comfortable working with a range of different people, including young people.

• You don't want your days to pass without making a difference. You want to play a significant part in reducing the level of youth violence.

• You are committed to equality, diversity and inclusion. You believe and act in a way that celebrates and encourages a range of experiences, views and values

You must be able to demonstrate the following areas of knowledge/experience:

• Research methods: You have good knowledge and practical experience of a range of quantitative and/or qualitative research methods, and the ability to both deploy them and critically appraise their use.

• Excellent communicator: You can combine your technical expertise with experience of communicating complex evidence and analysis in a simple and accessible way to non-experts.

• Stakeholder engagement: You are comfortable seeking the views of young people and other stakeholders to help gather experiential insights for our work. This could include facilitating sessions with them.

• Project management: You are comfortable seeing projects from beginning to end, tracking progress across different workstreams and ensuring delivery keeps to deadlines.

• Collaborative working: You see value in working with others to get the best outcomes on each task and project.

• Job requirements

• An enhanced DBS check will be required for both roles but a criminal record is not a block on performing this role

You might have these sorts of qualifications/knowledge/skills/experience:

A post-graduate qualification. In a relevant field such as criminology, social policy, youth work, international development or any other relevant field with a significant research methods component

• For the General Research Officer role: Conducting reviews: Experience conducting or contributing to rapid evidence reviews and/or systematic reviews.  

• For the Youth Understanding Research Officer role: Youth work: Experience working with young people, either as a youth worker or in similar child/young person-facing roles.

While it is not a criterion, we are especially interested to hear from applicants who have lived experience of youth violence.

It is also important to us that the people we hire do not discriminate. We believe in being inclusive and giving everyone an equal chance to succeed. Applications are welcome from all regardless of age, sex, gender identity, disability, marriage or civil partnership, pregnancy and maternity, religion or belief, race, sexual orientation, transgender status or social economic background.

Application timelines

Please apply by midnight, 19 July 2020

You will be required to provide proof of your eligibility to work in the UK. As part of our commitment to flexible working we will consider a range of options for the successful applicant. All options can be discussed at interview stage.

First round interviews will take place in the week commencing 27 July 2020.

Second round interviews will take place in the week commencing 3 August 2020.

Your personal data will be shared for the purposes of the recruitment exercise. This includes our HR team, interviewers (who may include other partners in the project and independent advisors), relevant team managers and our IT service provider if access to the data is necessary for performance of their roles. We do not share your data with other third parties unless your application for employment is successful and we make you an offer of employment. We will then share your data with former employers to obtain references for you. We do not transfer your data outside the European Economic Area.