Education Inclusion Mentor

Salary: £25,000 - £28,000 p/a (please note successful candidates should expect to be appointed at the starting point of the salary scale and consideration may be given to a higher salary depending on the experience of the individual)

Contract Type: Fixed Term/Full Time

Contract Length: Fixed Term Contract until 31 March 2025

Working Hours: 35hrs p/w

Job Summary

St Giles is working alongside the SAFE Taskforces on an exciting new initiative to support young people at Risk of Serious Youth Violence. This exciting initiative brings together schools and partners to Support young people with challenging behaviour, enabling them to Attend school regularly so they can fulfil their potential and prevent costly poor life outcomes by inspiring them to Exceed their expectations.

About St Giles and the Project

An ambitious, well-established charity that helps people facing adversity to find jobs, homes, and the right support they need. Central to our ethos is our belief that people with first-hand experience of successfully overcoming issues such as an offending background, homelessness, addictions, and gang involvement, hold the key to positive change in others. 

Are you a skilled practitioner, passionate about making a difference to children /young people in school who live in vulnerable contexts?

About this pivotal role

Have you worked with socially excluded or challenging young people and other vulnerable groups? Do you have personal experience of gangs, knife crime or the other issues they face? Are you able to provide 1:1 mentoring support? Then join us as an Education Inclusion Mentor.

Working as an Education Welfare and Inclusion Mentor you will have relevant experience of successfully engaging and working with children and young people in an inclusive, relational and restorative capacity to secure positive outcomes. You will understand of the needs of vulnerable children and young people, the communities they live in and of how disadvantage can impact on learning and life chances. We would actively encourage interest from candidates who reflect the diverse communities across Leeds.  

As part of the team delivering this exciting new intervention, you will need to demonstrate that you have the ability to work flexibly, and at pace to meet appropriate deadlines with independence and be enthusiastic about working with a wide range of professional partners to bring about whole system change.

As an organisation that works with children and adults at risk we are committed to safeguarding, protecting, and promoting the safety of our clients and successful applicants will be required to undertake an Enhanced Adult and Child with Child Barred list DBS check.

What we are looking for:

Our successful candidate will be embedded in a secondary school offering intensive one-to-one mentoring to young people who have been identified by their education setting as needing targeted support.

You will work closely with the education setting to prioritise safeguarding and contribute to a shared aim of reducing exclusions, reduce risky behaviour and raise aspirations.         

To secure this role:

• You must have a proven track record of engaging positively with young people, young offenders or other vulnerable groups, plus providing support, advocacy, and the ability to assess clients’ needs
• Want to work in an embedded setting in schools. 
• Be able to establish positive and professional relationships with the children, young people, and professionals.
• Be able to build trust and create a safe space for children and young people in which to explore challenging and potentially traumatic issues and topics. 
• Have experience of providing 1:1 mentoring to young people 
• Be able to assist with providing monitoring information and the evaluation of the project. 
• Be able to represent the organisation externally as required. This includes the ability to embed yourself and work collaboratively with the partner schools and adapting to their culture.
• In return, you can expect a competitive salary, generous leave allowance, staff pension, flexible working, a mentoring programme, an advice and counselling service, season ticket loan and much more.

Closing date: 11pm, Friday, 9th February 2024.  Interview: W/c, 19th February 2024.