Are you looking for a way to give back to the community and use your experience and skills to support a charity? 

If you have a passion to tackle youth homelessness and, support young people to be independent and see the next generation thrive, 1625 Independent People would love to hear from you.  We are looking for a forward-thinking individual to support our charity and become a Board Member.

We are striving to better represent the young people we support and therefore are particularly keen to increase applications from ethnic minority groups, Black/Black British and Muslim candidates as they are currently under-represented in our organisation. We also encourage applications from people with relevant lived experience. 

If you need an adjustment to be made to any part of the recruitment process, please let us know as soon as possible.

What we are looking for
We are looking for someone with a background in finance and ideally experience of project and/or management accounting to strengthen the Board and work alongside the Treasurer. 2023 sets to be a challenging year with the current cost-of-living crisis and we are looking for someone to expand our governance skills in finance. Your robust and thorough approach will help 1625ip have maximum impact and build resilience.

What you’ll be doing
As a Board Member, you will use your skills, knowledge and experience to work collaboratively with the organisation’s Executive team to achieve the highest standards of operational performance throughout 1625ip. You will have the opportunity to be involved in the exciting new National Lottery Heritage Project, combining your experience whilst collaborating with other Board Members, colleagues and young people. 

You will be supported on your Board Member journey by a full induction programme and the opportunity to have a Board Buddy to help settle into your new role.

There are 6 Board meetings a year, potentially 2-4 additional committee meetings a year, an away day and several events with young people who use our services. The young people events are optional but are very informative and fun. 

About 1625 Independent People
1625ip has been working with young people in the South West for 40 years. We are award winning experts in providing services for young homeless people, care leavers, those at risk and young people who offend. Despite multiple and complex needs, over 80% of the young people we support go on to succeed. 

We provide much more than just a safe home for young people. We give them a network of people they can trust and a range of specialist support in areas, for example mental health and jobs coaching.  A major part of our work is supporting young people into Education, Employment and Training.  We offer young people opportunities they’ve never had, giving them a chance to believe in themselves, take healthy risks and to play a positive part in their communities.  

 In 2023 we are:

• Investing in the wellbeing of our colleagues and volunteers recognising the vital role that they play in young people’s lives.
• Improving our properties and maximising the support we can provide young people based on our Psychologically Informed Environment framework.
• Developing a strategy to improve young people’s space, community use and working environment, through the launch of our National Lottery Heritage Project.
• Increasing the way, we can work in a more agile and digital way but preserving very important relationship work with young people.
• Developing ways to support young people manage the cost-of-living crisis.
• Creating an improved governance, central team and financial base to enable us to grow.

At 1625ip we are led by our Competency Development Framework. This connects our values to our behaviours in everything we do and gives us the tools to develop. The framework ensures our recruitment is better informed, applications and interviews are behaviourally based and role profiles are developed on the ‘how’ of a role.

Be one of our Board members and help us on this exciting journey.     

Important dates

• Application deadline closes: 23:59, Tuesday 18 April 2023.
• If you have not heard from us by the end of the day on Friday 21 April 2023, please assume that your application has been unsuccessful on this occasion. 
•  Interviews are on Thursday 04 May 2023.