We’re here to prevent children and young people becoming involved in violence. We do this by finding out what works and building a movement to put this knowledge into practice.

Last year, 244 people in England and Wales tragically died after being assaulted with a knife. Of these, 32 were children. Every child captured in these numbers is an important member of our community and society has a duty to protect them. Even when violence doesn’t strike directly, we know that the fear of violence has a terrible effect on children’s lives.

The Youth Endowment Fund exists to try and permanently change things. To succeed, we must build an exceptional body of knowledge about violence affecting young people and how we reduce it. This knowledge has to be both rigorous and highly relevant to those making decisions about how to support vulnerable young people. We need to find out what works and what doesn’t through evidence synthesis, data analysis and qualitative research into children’s lives. We need to convert this into highly accessible content on what works, how delivery organisations need to change their practice and how the systems they operate in need to be reformed. We then need to work with the right people that can make change happen, across systems, policies and practice, to have a real impact on reducing violence affecting children’s lives.

We can’t do this alone, we have to build and maintain brilliant partnerships across government, with other funders and with wider society. We are looking for an exceptional individual to lead on this work. We also need to have an eye for the future. Our present endowment must be spent down by April 2029. We need someone who can lead on planning for the future.

Key responsibilities

You ensure that we:

• Are ready for the future: Born with a ten-year endowment, the YEF has become the leading authoritative voice on how to reduce violence affecting children. We must spend down this endowment by April 2029, so need to start thinking about after this date. You will lead on ensuring we have a great plan for post 2029. You will spot the best opportunities, assess them and, over time, take them. This includes both building great external relationships and also ensuring there’s a clearly articulated, inspiring narrative – filled with facts, examples and case studies – of what has been delivered to date and what needs to happen between 2029 and 2039 to double down on our mission. To do this, you will orchestrate the expertise and knowledge of colleagues across the organisation – ensuring that what you need comes together perfectly.
• Build and maintain great relationships across government: We have an increasingly large number of relationships across government – providing advice and support on what works to prevent violence. You will be ready to offer advice to colleagues on those relationships where needed. You will build new relationships and maintain them where they are needed so we are ready for the future.
• You will be really well organised too ensuring that internal colleagues know which relationships they own and making sure that key regular meetings are in place. We have a simple process that tracks these relationships; you will make this process work well for us – with minimum bureaucracy and maximum effectiveness.
• You will also provide help and advice and coaching as YEF colleagues think through how best to get system changes to happen that will ultimately reduce violence.
• Build great relationships with other organisations that will be key to the future: As the lead organisation on reducing violence affecting young people, we increasingly receive and see a host of opportunities to partner with other organisations including funders on projects, co-funding and research.
• You will support this work – leading on relationships that are essential in making us ready for the future. You will spot the opportunity, build relationships, bring in other YEF colleagues, pull together key information, write brilliant documents where needed, win others over. In short, you will make great things happen.