RSPB England has an exciting opportunity for a Youth Project Officer to lead the development and delivery of an exciting part of our Naturally Connected Communities Project (Birmingham), a Green Recovery Challenge funded initiative. The programme will be delivered in partnership with the Prince’s Trust to engage diverse communities of young people with nature who are not currently in Employment Education or Training (NEET). As Youth Project Officer you will plan, promote, and deliver two ‘Get Started’ in Conservation programmes based primarily at our Sandwell Valley nature reserve in Birmingham.  

About The Prince's Trust

The Prince's Trust is a youth charity that helps young people aged 11 to 30 get into jobs, education, and training. ‘Get Started’ goes far beyond teaching young people new skills. Throughout every programme the Prince’s Trust weave a real and meaningful group challenge – one that young people are unlikely to achieve without their support. At the end of the programme, young people will have had a taste of what success feels like. From this point onwards the aim is to harness that feeling of success and continue to provide ongoing support to enable young people to move onto a positive outcome.

There are over 30 different themes of ‘Get Started’ programme and through our recent partnership working we have developed a ‘Get Started’ programme themed around conservation which is aimed at giving young people a taster of several different aspects of the conservation sector - from hands-on conservation work to discovering nature and the challenges it faces, along with confidence building activities based around bushcraft and survival in the outdoors. We have already delivered one very successful ‘Get Started’ programme on our nature reserve in the New Forest and are now planning to deliver two more at our Sandwell Valley nature reserve in Birmingham.

What’s the role about

You will lead on the delivery of two Prince’s Trust ‘Get Started’ programmes at our Sandwell Valley RSPB nature reserve. Each programme lasts five days with an additional one day taster day the week before the programme and a reunion/celebration day within two weeks after the programme ends. The programmes will be delivered at the end of March and July 2022.

What we need from you

• You will be responsible for working with the Prince’s Trust, supporting them in the recruitment and promotion of the project. You will manage all aspects of the project from planning through to delivery, as well as monitoring, evaluating, and reporting impact. You will liaise with both the reserve staff and the Prince’s Trust team ensuring everything is planned to create a seamless project that delivers all required outcomes.
• This role is a real opportunity to inspire young people to want to take action to help nature so it’s important for you to have a good understanding of the challenges nature faces and can ensure our conservation message runs as the golden thread throughout the programme.
• The role will also require you to have skills and knowledge in delivering bushcraft and survival to young people such as shelter building, fire making as well as outdoor cooking.
• You will be able to work independently and as part of a team and you will have some leadership experience as well as excellent communication skills. It is important to be able to build strong working relationships both internally and externally.

Essential skills, knowledge, and experience

• Experience of delivering outdoor nature-based activities such as BioBlitz/Pond dipping
• Experience in delivering bushcraft and survival sessions such as fire making, shelter building and outdoor cooking
• Experience of engaging with young people from a variety of diverse background ages 16 – 30
• Skilled in being able to communicate clearly and confidently with young people
• Project planning and delivery experience, including monitoring, evaluating, and reporting against the effectiveness and impact of projects and/or activities
• Proficiency in MS Office systems

Desirable skills, knowledge, and experience

• Knowledge of the conservation sector along with the challenges nature faces
• Knowledge of reviewing techniques and ability to draw learning outcomes from a variety of sessions
• Experience of building and maintaining positive working relationships with internal and external stakeholders

It would be beneficial for the successful candidate to be based in the West Midlands area as we are not able to cover costs of travel, however, it is not essential. During the delivery of this programme, you will be required to be based at our Sandwell Valley nature reserve along with the occasional need for face-to-face meetings during the planning and evaluation phases. Outside of those times, there is an option to work remotely from home or be dual located, working between home and the RSPB’s central Birmingham office as the business need requires, or fully based in the Birmingham office if preferred.

Please note that you will be required to only complete an online application form where you will be given the opportunity to explain why you are best suited for this role.

Before applying to this role we recommend reading through the candidate guidance notes attached to the top of this advert on our careers page.

We are committed to making our organisation diverse and inclusive, and as such are keen to encourage applications from people from black, Asian, and minority ethnic backgrounds, as well as those with disabilities.

We are actively recruiting for this role and reserve the right to close this advert at any time.

We are looking to conduct interviews for this position on Wednesday 15th of December on Microsoft Teams.

Should you have any queries about this vacancy, please contact Charlotte Trigg - Birmingham Community Project Manager – charlotte.trigg@rspb.org.uk