Recruiting: Trustee, and Chair of Trustees

Could you be the person to help steer our charity from its first five years in to a flourishing future?

Who are we?

We are a young, dynamic, grass-roots, award-winning charity focused solely on helping under fives who are homeless or at risk of homelessness in Newham and surrounding boroughs.
Our mission is to make sure that a period in temporary or insecure accommodation does not cause long term damage to the health, wellbeing and life chances of those under fives who experience it. Because of hte nature of the need we face up to 75% of those families we work alongside are subject to the hostile environment.
We have a strong staff team, a large group of volunteers, and we are well established in our community from which we enjoy unprecedented support.
We punch way above our weight on the local and national policy stage, making big noises in parliament, the house of lords, in the London Borough of Newham, in the arts and even in fashion.
Now, in our fifth year we are looking to take on a new building, and to consolidate and codify our work so that we can use our learning to keep improving the work we do alongside our families as well as help other organisations meet their needs.
We are hands on, curious, joyful and compassionate in our approach and we are looking for trustees who share our belief that every single child has the right to a secure, safe place to play, healthy food, engaged, informed parents, and access to support, no matter what their family circumstances.

Who are you?

• You have a deep and demonstrable commitment to our aims and ethos of coproduction with, journeying alongside, meeting the needs of, and advocating for, our community of mothers and children who face multiple barriers to accessing services to which they are entitled. This will be visible in your professional and personal life.
• You are honest about the amount of time you can give to our board and able to set that time aside each week/month.
• You are committed to playing an active, curious, energetic part in the day-to-day life and growth of our charity.
• You have experience of governance, VAWG, Homelessness, Immigration work or of HR or law.
• If you have lived experience of any of the issues facing our families (temporary accommodation, forced migration, insecure housing) we would especially love to hear from you
• Will be able to commit at least 3 solid focused hours a week to this role, although this will vary across weeks.
  

Please do think very carefully about whether this is the point in your life where you are able to take on a trustee role. In our experience – and we do this ourselves too – people tend to over-estimate how much time they will be able to commit and then, when in post, struggle to fulfil the commitment. This makes things stressful and difficult both for them – they feel guilty, or anxious and the trusteeship becomes a chore – and we feel bad for chasing up good people who we know are just over-committe

We offer

• The chance to be part of a friendly, informal, supportive and effective board and organisation.
• The opportunity to be part of an award winning, change making, innovative charity based in trauma- and psychologically-informed practice.
• Training around being a trustee, governance, and safeguarding.
• An arena in which to make a real difference that you can see and measure from week one.

Applications close May 25th noon.
Interviews first week in June.