Overview

Action for Conservation is looking for a Programme Coordinator in South West England and Wales to join our team! 

How to apply: Fill out the application form here.
Application deadline: June 20th 2021
Work location: South West of England or Wales, with weekly travel to our Bristol office and regular regional travel
Start date: As soon as possible after appointment
Contract: Full-time, 12-month fixed term, with possible extension Salary: £23,500 – £25,500 per annum
Benefits: 28 days annual leave including public holidays, access to flexible working, a workplace pension and numerous development opportunities outlined below in the ‘Why work with us’ section

About Action for Conservation 

We are at a critical moment in our earth’s history, and it’s never been more important to empower every young person to fight for their future and the future of the planet. Action for Conservation is an innovative young charity using pioneering approaches to inspire the next generation of environmental leaders. We work with young people from diverse backgrounds to build a youth movement committed to the earth. 

Our commitment to diversity 

Diversity is one of our core values as an organisation and we are committed to creating an inclusive working environment where diversity is valued and there is equality of opportunity. We also recognise that the climate and ecological crisis disproportionately impacts minority 

and/or marginalised communities – yet these voices are largely underrepresented in the sector. Currently, the environmental sector is the second least diverse of all UK workforces, with only 3.1% of people employed from Black Asian and Minority Ethnic backgrounds (compared to 19.9% of the general workforce). If the environmental movement is to succeed in creating a greener future that supports our whole society, we need diverse voices at the heart of our work. We therefore encourage applicants from people currently underrepresented in the environmental movement to apply. 

Why work with us? 

You’ll be joining a young, mission-driven team who truly love what they do. Working with young people is always rewarding, sometimes challenging and never boring, and you’ll get to experience first-hand the positive impact that your work has. It goes without saying that we work hard, but we also maintain a positive work-life balance and spend lots of time outdoors. Some of the benefits of working at Action for Conservation include: 

• 28 days annual leave including public holidays plus one additional day for each year served plus 4 paid annual volunteer days. 
• Quarterly team ‘action days’ & away weekends in the great outdoors.
• Access to flexible working. 
• A workplace pension. 
• A bespoke personal and professional development plan, co-developed with you and your line manager, to identify and progress your training, development and career aims. 
• The opportunity to grow into the role, learn and develop on the job, and hopefully progress within the team as opportunities arise. 
• A robust training package, including outdoor first aid, child safeguarding and food hygiene training, with further opportunities to be identified. 
• Developing new skills and knowledge like public speaking, youth engagement, group facilitation and management, practical conservation, environmental policy and campaigns and community networking. 
• Opportunities to share your voice and shape the direction of our work, ensuring that our content is relevant and reflective of your interests and the issues facing your community. 
• Mentoring inspirational young people from all walks of life and supporting them to transform their ideas into meaningful action. 

About the role – Programme Coordinator 

This is an exciting role for a self-motivated individual who shares our passion for youth-led solutions to the climate and environmental crisis. You will be responsible for delivering our core programmes in South West England and Wales, where you will support, inspire and 

empower young people to connect with nature in new and exciting ways, design and deliver environmental action projects that benefit wildlife and people and have a voice on environmental issues that are relevant and exciting to them. 

Our core programmes include: 

1. WildED: Our flagship programme for schools and youth groups aimed to support young people in urban areas engage with environmental topics and design action projects to tackle local issues that they care about. 
2. WildWEB: Our digital action programme that supports young people to take action for the environment and prepare for the world that lies beyond lockdown.
3. Residential camps: All-inclusive visits to our beautiful national parks where we empower young people to learn about nature, environmental justice and social issues, alongside other young people from across the UK. 
4. Ambassador programme: An action-packed mentoring scheme for young people who graduate from our camps to further develop their skills and knowledge and share their voice on the issues they care about. 

You can read more about our core programmes here. 

Across these core programmes, you will: 

• Recruit young people and schools to take part in our programmes.
• Plan and deliver workshops, hands-on action days, celebratory events, webinars and skill-building activities for young people. 
• Support and mentor young people to imagine, plan and deliver environmental action projects to tackle an array of environmental and social issues. 
• Support young people to experience and connect with nature, through both residential and day-to-day activities. 
• Enable young people to connect with local partners and stakeholders to ensure their activities are embedded within the local community and their impact is maximised through partnership support. 
• Evaluate the effectiveness of our programmes and measure the impact of young people’s projects and activities. 

To support these core programmes, you will also: 

• Grow our network of volunteers who support our programmes. 
• Communicate about our work through social media, YouTube, blogs, newsletters, articles and talks. 
• Create exciting content and educational materials for young people.
• Network on behalf of the charity and identify, explore and develop new partnership opportunities that help us to reach new audiences and extend our reach beyond the traditional environmental sphere. 

Your skills and experience 

The following experience, knowledge and skills are those that we are looking for in candidates for the above role. Those listed as ‘Essential (E)’ are those that candidates must have. Candidates who fail to meet these criteria will not be short-listed. ‘Desired (D)’ skills and experience are those that it would be advantageous to have, although it is not essential.

Experience & knowledge (Essential or desirable?)

• Experience working with young people in a professional capacity. E
• Environmental knowledge demonstrated through post-secondary education and/or relevant work or volunteer experience. E
• Good understanding of the barriers to young people, and particularly young people from disadvantaged and/or minority ethnic backgrounds, in engaging with environmental issues. E
• Experience organising events, workshops or other activities with members of the public. E
• Experience of supporting young people to design and deliver campaigns or environmental action projects. D
• Good knowledge of the region you will be working in and its unique challenges and opportunities. D
• Satisfactory enhanced DBS disclosure (we will organise this following your successful appointment). E 

Skills & abilities (Essential or desirable)? 

• The ability to inspire, motivate and relate to young people, especially those who are different to you, and get them excited about nature. E
• Good communication skills – in writing, verbal and through formal facilitation – with the ability to adapt your communication style to different environments and present to diverse audiences. E
• Solutions orientated, proactive and highly organised, with a friendly outlook and the ability to multi-task across various programmes and respond rapidly to new opportunities. E 

Picture yourself in the role 

We know that it can be difficult to imagine yourself in any role that you read about on a job board. So, we’ve asked two of our current team members to share what it’s like being a Programme Coordinator. 

Charlie, South East Programme Coordinator 

“My workday starts with saying good morning to the team on Slack. I then follow up with schools who have expressed interest in our WildED school programme but haven’t yet scheduled time with me to have a logistics chat. Whilst I’m at it, I email some inspirational and informational resources to the leader of a youth group we’re working with and check on the progress of their project planning. Then it’s time for today’s WildED workshop, which is online so I get to deliver it from the comfort of my own home with my colleague. We join a few minutes early, have a catch up with the teacher and then dive into a 45-minute session jam-packed with interactive activities and discussions around climate change. I then have a Zoom meeting with a young person to discuss my suggested edits for their ‘lightning talk’ for an upcoming conference and practice their presentation skills. Around 4 pm I tackle general admin tasks, like submitting travel expenses, uploading files to Google Drive and creating graphics to liven up our presentations.” 

Omar, South East Programme Coordinator 

“I help to deliver our WildED school programme as well as our WildWEB digital programme. Recruitment forms a good amount of my role – if we didn’t recruit we wouldn’t have anyone to deliver our programmes with! I love several aspects of this job and I’ve learned a lot in my first few months. Weekly content creation for our programmes has been a wonderful way to increase my ability to create good-looking, accessible content in a timely manner. Programme delivery has had a noticeable impact on my public speaking skills and has helped me learn how to conduct and coach young people in group settings. I have been able to apply all these skills to my volunteering roles outside Action for Conservation, which has been the icing on the cake!” 

Sophie, North West Programme Coordinator 

“I start my workday by cycling to our office in central Manchester. I grab a cup of tea and start work at nine. I read my emails and reply to a teacher who I am working with through our WildED programme. Then, I’m picked up by my line manager and we travel to complete a risk assessment for an upcoming event with our Youth Ambassadors – it is a storytelling workshop that we’re leading in partnership with a local organisation that specialises in creative communication. I love getting to travel around Manchester and meet interesting people working in the local community! Then it’s back to the office and time for lunch – I go for a walk outside since the weather is nice. After lunch, I get stuck into project evaluation – this involves me inputting data for each of the youth-led projects I support. I end the day by sending a few more emails and if I am lucky, thinking about my priorities the next day and scrawling another messy to-do list in my notebook.!”