Youth Participation Officer

Salary: £32,000

Contract Type: Fixed Term for 24 Months

Location: UK (minimum 2 days per week in the London office)

Work Pattern: Full-time, 37.5 hours per week with the opportunity for flexible working hours

Reporting To: Senior Youth Participation Manager, Impact Team

Youth Development at Mission 44

As a youth-focused foundation, young people are central to our work. We view young people as active collaborators in creating an inclusive future. Our commitment is to share power, to ensure they have meaningful influence over the decisions that affect their lives, their communities, and the systems around them. Mission 44’s Youth Empowerment Strategy aims to ensure young people are embedded across all aspects of our impact work (including grantmaking, convening and campaigning), as well as helping us to shape our strategy, evaluate our impact, raise funds and awareness amongst key stakeholders.

In this newly established role of Youth Participation Officer, you’ll play a pivotal role in supporting and coordinating participation activities across the organisation, ensuring that young people are meaningfully involved, well-supported, and able to shape decisions and influence our work. Alongside this, you will support the team in launching and delivering an innovative programme created in partnership with our Youth Advisory Board.

We’re looking for someone who is passionate about youth empowerment, someone who is highly organised, and skilled at building trusted relationships. You will be a proactive problem-solver, able to balance multiple priorities while ensuring young people feel supported and heard. If you’re motivated by creating opportunities for young people to drive change, we’d love you to join our team and help us strengthen the impact we make together.  Please note: this role involves some evening and weekend work. 

Implementation of the Youth Empowerment Strategy (40%)

• Work closely with the Senior Youth Participation Manager to successfully implement a detailed activity plan to achieve key objectives and key results.
• Play a key role in the execution of Mission 44’s new Youth Empowerment Programme, ensuring all activities are delivered on time, to a high standard, and in line with agreed objectives.
• Support the Senior Youth Participation Manager to design and facilitate engaging, inclusive workshops and meetings for young people.
• Design, lead and implement a learning and development programme for youth advisors to equip them with the knowledge, skills, and confidence to shape our work.
• Where required, represent Mission 44 externally at relevant events, meetings, and forums to champion youth participation and intergenerational collaboration.
• Uphold high standards of safeguarding in line with Mission 44’s safeguarding policies and procedures.

Planning, Coordination and Operations (40%)

• Serve as the primary liaison between our young advisors and Mission 44 directorates, including Fundraising, Communications, the CEO Office, and Impact; responding to staff enquiries on youth participation, fostering effective cross-team communication, and building trusted relationships with both young people and staff.
• Act as one of the main points of contact for Youth Advisors (alongside the Senior Youth Participation Manager), responding to queries, providing the tools, resources, and information they need to engage across Mission 44’s work.
• Support the planning and coordination of annual youth engagement activities, including scheduling, logistics, and communications.
• Develop and maintain efficient administrative and communication systems to keep operations running smoothly, including time tracking and invoicing for Youth Advisors.

Monitoring, Learning and Impact (20%)

• Support the Senior Youth Participation Manager and Head of Strategy and Learning to collect key impact and evaluation data from staff and young people.
• Support reflection and reporting activities amongst the staff and youth advisors, to capture learning and impact.
• Contribute to evaluation processes, and ensure we’re continually learning to improve our ways of working and approach to youth participation 
• Seek and develop opportunities to raise awareness of Mission 44’s approach to working with young people.
• Assist with annual reporting and provide input into fundraising and communications materials where relevant.

About You

Skills and Experience

Essential 

• A passion for and deep understanding of Mission 44’s values and approach to youth empowerment.
• Experience of working with young people and creating opportunities for them to lead and have their voice heard.
• Excellent organisational, coordination and communication skills.
• Good interpersonal skills, particularly in the context of managing both internal and external relationships.
• Able to effectively time manage and prioritise effectively while overseeing multiple simultaneous projects and deliverables.
• Capable of developing, maintaining and reviewing administration systems and processes to achieve maximum efficiency.

Desirable 

• Experience working in the non-profit, grantmaking, youth employment or youth sector
• Experience in programme design and implementation.
• Understanding of intergenerational collaboration and participatory approaches.
• Experience of embedding young people in policy, advocacy and storytelling.

Personal Qualities 

• Passionate about supporting and empowering young people to thrive and succeed.
• Committed to championing youth voice, ensuring that young people are positioned as agents of change.
• Highly collaborative, adept at building and maintaining relationships with a wide range of internal and external stakeholders.
• Ability to work independently and also as part of a dynamic team; self-motivated and proactive.
• Committed to embedding the values of equity, diversity, and inclusion in all aspects of work.
• Curious, open to learning, and informed about best practices in youth participation and social impact.
• Creative and solutions-oriented, with the confidence to share bold ideas.

• Enjoy 28 days annual leave, plus a day for your birthday
• Use our cycle-to-work scheme and free gym access
• Save for retirement with our generous pension package
• We finish every Friday at noon in August
• Optional health insurance and acccess to an EAP
• Professional development budget of £1k
• Unlimited volunteering leave, as agreed with your manager
• Wellbeing allowance to spend in whatever way works for you
• Competitive parental leave package