Schools Programme Lead

Job Title:                           Schools Programme Lead

Salary:                               £40,000-£45,000

Responsible to:               Head of Mission Services, Ruth Strauss Foundation

Accountable to:              Chief Executive Officer  

                                           Board of the Ruth Strauss Foundation 

Hours per week:             35 hours per week 

Location:                          Flexible across the week between home and office, office 1-2 days per week. The office is currently in Old Street, London  

Ruth Strauss Foundation

In early 2018, Ruth Strauss, wife of Sir Andrew Strauss the former England cricket captain, was diagnosed with incurable lung cancer that affects non-smokers.  Ruth died on 29th December 2018; she was 46 years old and mother to two children, then aged 10 and 13.

Our Mission:  In her memory, Sir Andrew has launched The Ruth Strauss Foundation to:

• To ensure that every family with a child facing the death of a parent is offered the professional emotional support they need to prepare the family for the future.
• To facilitate collaboration and influence research in the fight against non-smoking related lung cancers, so that together we find the causes sooner and improve outcomes. 

Role overview

As the Schools Programme Lead, you will be a senior member of the Mission Services team, providing leadership and direction of delivery for the RSF training programmes for schools and education sectors across the UK. 

The Foundation has the vision to offer training to all schools (primary, secondary, and further education institutes) across the UK. The training will enable schools to have the skills, confidence and knowledge to support children and young people whose parents' cancer is incurable. We have a pilot training programme designed for schools and this is ready to roll out. 

Our ambition is to also offer education to children & and young people so they can support their peers who face parental and close bereavements as well. The work to develop pilot content with external researchers for the peer-to-peer training starts in the Spring of this year with anticipation of having this available to schools after 12 months. This pilot is aimed at primary schools. 

Your role will be to lead the strategic and operational delivery of the RSF school's training programme. Starting with supporting the pilot training for schools and peer-to-peer children & young people education. Then we will evaluate and consider the best options to roll out both offers to UK schools. 

All of RSF’s training offers have been developed using a co-design approach, which brings together people with personal experiences of parental bereavement/ co-parent/partner with incurable cancer, as well as sector experts such as teachers, school counsellors, and academics/researchers. We expect this to be a core part of the future approach. 

Key relationships

• Head of Mission Services, Ruth Strauss Foundation
• Training Programme Administrator 
• Trainers/facilitators (to be recruited) 
• Training Programme Lead for Healthcare Training 
• Family Support Service Lead 

Responsibilities

1. To lead all aspects of the RSF training programme for schools and the education sector. 
2. To develop a delivery model for the training programme based on findings from the pilot programme.
3. Lead the launch of the training programme for school staff and peer-to-peer education for children and young people in primary schools following both pilots. 
4. Work with marketing and communications to promote and market the launch offers. 
5. Work with our CRM development and support colleagues to develop a process to coordinate the management of the training programme, such as expressions of interest, bookings management, feedback and certificates at the end of the training. 
6. Design an employment structure for a team of facilitators and oversee the recruitment, induction and training of these facilitators. 
7. Design and manage the quality monitoring on the team of facilitators. 
8. Pilot and evaluate the opportunity to offer ‘masterclass’ style webinars to those previously trained in school. 
9. Working with the Family Support Service Lead and Marketing & Communications colleagues, to develop resources to support the training programme content. 
10. Manage the budget and expenditure for the programme.
11. Lead on the development of service outcome and impact measures. 
12. Provide regular written reports on service outputs, outcomes, and impact for the RSF Board of Trustees and RSF Family Support Advisory Group.
13. Lead on implementing any new practices or processes as required to successfully deliver this programme.
14. Contribute to grant or funding applications being developed by the RSF Fundraising Team, including supporting reporting of restricted grant funding.
15. Raise awareness of the needs of families where a child is facing parental bereavement and forge links with appropriate organisations.
16. Represent the Ruth Strauss Foundation at conferences, workshops, and meetings as requested by the Head of Mission Services.
17. Participate in and support media work as required by the RSF Executive Team.

Person specification

essential

• Experience working with pre-bereavement and/or bereavement with children or families. 
• Qualification and registered as a counsellor, social worker or health care professional.
• An understanding of the UK education sector (primary, secondary, or Further Education).
• Up-to-date knowledge and understanding of the National Curriculum and teaching and learning practice.
• Experience in developing and managing a programme of learning/education within the education sector and seeing it through successfully. 
• Experience in managing staff and supporting their development. 
• Experience in successfully working collaboratively with partners and stakeholders to develop successful partnerships and achieve joint success against shared objectives.
• The ability to plan and prioritise workloads and work accurately to deadlines.
• Ability to self-motivate and use initiative to work independently. 
• Excellent interpersonal skills, operating with enthusiasm, flexibility, energy and commitment.
• Excellent IT skills, particularly in the use of Microsoft Office, MS Teams and Zoom.
• Willing to learn the use of a CRM system (we use Salesforce)
• Ability to work with issues, experiences and consequences of pre-bereavement or anticipatory grief. 
• Ability to learn and reflect on experiences.  
• Ability and drive to identify service gaps and creatively expand services that are grounded in high-quality and safe practices.
• Willing to travel nationally during term time; this will include overnight stays.

Advantageous

• Experience in working with self-employed facilitators/trainers.  
• Experience in commissioning and managing research contracts.  
• Experience in using CRM systems. 
• Experience working in the charitable sector.  

We are committed to being an inclusive workforce that fully represents many different cultures, backgrounds and viewpoints. We welcome applications that help us in our mission to be a place where you can be yourself and thrive.

Please send your CV and covering letter to Deepa Doshi, Head of Mission Services by Friday 5th July. Interviews will be held the week commencing 15th July. 

We highly recommend you contact Deepa Doshi, Head of Mission Services before submission to discuss the role deepa.doshi@ruthstraussfoundation.com or 07930 340 774.