INTERNSHIP APPLICATION

PACK

An independent randomised control trial provides “compelling and robust evidence that young people who take part in Community-Apprentice develop some of the most critical skills for employment and adulthood.” Participants showed statistically significant improvements across a range of competencies, for example an 11% increase in empathy, an 11% increase in co-operation , a 7% increase in grit and resilience and a 6% increase in problem solving. They also showed an 11% improvement in attitudes towards education compared to the control group.

We don’t just help young people to develop their skills we also enable them to demonstrate that they have them to employers. Every young person graduates with a reference drafted by a business

volunteer which provides real examples of behaviours drawn from the programme. 97% of young people say that feel more confident of about talking to prospective employers about their competencies

and 90% feel more confident of getting a job as a result of completing the programme.

We’ve recently been supported by the Careers and Enterprise Company as a model of effective practice and they are supporting us to scale our operations. We are planning to increase the number of young people we are supporting by 50% next year and looking for people who want to be part of our growing success story.

Where there is a sense that doing something for others is good for all of us. A society where every individual feels motivated and able to do

A bit about usHow would you change education?

Why social action?

Several other organisations already run enterprise competitions in schools. But not all young people see themselves as an ‘entrepreneur’. Using social action, we’re able to engage a different cohort of young people. Often these are young people who feel passionately about issues which have touched their lives or those around them, such as gang crime, mental health or food poverty.

We also use social action because we believe that education should prepare young people to contribute to society beyond making a purely economic contribution. We believe that the most effective way to ensure young people really believe that they can make a difference, is to give them a positive experience of doing so.

At Envision we believe that schools should be more than exam factories. That’s why we’re working with them to support young people, particularly those from more disadvantaged backgrounds, to develop the personal qualities they’ll need to succeed in life.

When it comes to preparing young people for work, we think that what employers would find really useful would be a GCSE in the art of ‘getting s**t done’! In the meantime we’ve come up with the next best thing. Through Community-Apprentice, we engaging local companies and the wider community to inspire and support young people to come up with their own ideas and make them happen.

Our impact

Our ambitions

About the internship

Many organisations think of an internship as an extra pair of hands. Not us. Our interns are a vital part of our front-line delivery team: each of them responsible for leading the day-to-day delivery of our programme in around five schools over a ten month period.

Why? We believe that character is ‘caught’ as well as ‘taught’ so we want to ensure that the people leading our programmes are inspiring role models. Over the past 14 years we have found that our students are really motivated by working with young leaders, who are often not so much older than themselves, especially when these people have been selected for an infectious passion for social action.

By offering the role as a short-term internship we can attract great people by appealing to people who are looking for an opportunity to give back or develop themselves. You

may have decided that youth work is your long term career goal, in which case this is definitely for you. Alternatively you may have other career plans but would really like the

opportunity to spend a few months really making a difference to young people first and playing your role to make the world a better place. If so, and you have what it takes, then

lucky us, lucky our young people and lucky our society!

We have a large number of applicants for each internship and one reason for this is because we offer real responsibility. With responsibility comes reward: the satisfaction of knowing that you have been able to make a real impact on young people when you see them recognise their own potential to effect positive change.

The opportunity to be really accountable for success means that our interns build up great CVs faster than many of their peers and the majority go on to get great roles within the sector.

This progression is also enhanced by the training we offer. Our internship starts a month before you go out to a school, allowing you to build skills and knowledge in areas such as group facilitation, project planning and volunteer management. You’ll have top up training in October and then in January you will go away on a residential development experience with the whole organisation. Between these times you will have weekly check-in sessions and be observed delivering sessions so that you can get feedback to support your development.

The best learning however will come through experience and the intensity and diversity of the experience we are offering will enable you to develop (and evidence to future employers)

a very broad range of skills which could help you progress your career in many different directions.

For example you will, of course, spend a lot of time gaining direct experience of working with young people in one of the fastest growing sectors of youth work: youth social action. But as much of your time will be spent working with other adults helping them to support your young people, individuals such as our corporate volunteers, school link workers, and workers from other charities. This will help you to develop your relationship building skills and learn about how to motivate people to get what you need from them.

You will also gain experience of wider stakeholder management, particularly in terms of education business partnerships. This could prepare you for a career in corporate CSR as

well as the charity sector.

Then there are the general project management skills you will gain such as the setting of clear goals and performance indicators, identifying and mitigating risks, planning milestones

and monitoring progress and evaluating success. These skills have wide relevance and are highly prized in many sectors of work.

Why we have interns

What’s in it for you?

For many people, our internship is the first rung on a ladder of a career given to supporting young people, for example· Phillip Kerry is now Director of Programmes at

London Youth,· Rachel Urquart is Director of learning at the

Bridge Academy and· Peter Olwaye is Programme Lead for Our

Future at the EY Foundation

The internship also provides experience for a career in CSR, for example today:· Lydia Parnell is Programme Manager,

International Corporate Community Investment, at Business in the Community.

· Rachna Shah is Engagement Executive at High Speed Two and

· Rebecca Simms is Research Associate at the Asian Development Bank Institute, supporting policy makers to support poverty reduction.

Others have used the internship to gain an understanding of the variety of roles in the third sector:· Leah Gaffrey is now Global Platform Manager

Bangladesh at Action Aid Denmark.· Stephen Frost is Head of Research and

Monitoring at Sustrains and· Rommel Mosley is Director of Business

Development and Partnerships at Drink Aware

Others still have been inspired to pursue their interests in academia· Patrick Taylor is doing a PHD on the National

Citizen Service· Rebecca is combining her passion for working

with young people with an interest in religious studies by undertaking a PHD on religious media programming.

· Henry Albery has moved to Germany where he is a doctoral fellow in Buddhist studies and Indology.

WHAT NEXT?“The Envision internship has offered me some of the biggest challenges of my life. The sheer number of activities I’ve been

involved in has given me a chance to develop varied skills as well as knowledge of sustainable development and social justice

issues. This breadth means that I have developed the ability to adapt quickly to the

demands of different tasks and the skills they require. The internship is not only a

great personal development role it is also a huge amount of fun! The atmosphere in the office is dynamic, colleagues are inspiring and the young people who get involved are

constantly entertaining”

2: THE FILM CHALLENGEIn September and October, participants explore real problems, which may involve carrying out surveys with local stakeholders, consulting with decision makers and speaking with community groups and local charities. We ask them what upsets them or makes them angry and to identify ‘one thing’ they would like to see changed.

Collaboration skills are developed as the team work together to agree on a single issue for their project. Once an issue is chosen, students learn more about their subject through research such as meeting external experts, who are often part of our network.

Teams hone their communication skills to produce a short two-minute film (in a single take) which, through a combination of passion and evidence, seeks to win hearts and minds about why their cause matters.

1: THE ‘AUDITIONS’Community-Apprentice graduates from previous years present the programme in school assemblies. Young people are asked to submit an expression of interest saying why they would like to be involved. The programme is generally over-subscribed which means that we can work with teachers to identify pupils who are most likely to benefit.

4 : THE BOARD ROOM CHALLENGEThrough continued weekly sessions we coach young people to solve their own problems and hold each other to account to keep their projects progressing. During this phase there is a lot of activity between meetings and at weekends. The nature of the activities depends upon the project, ranging from transforming a physical space to delivering peer education workshops. In June, teams come together in clusters again to present to ‘Sir Alan’s advisors’ why they deserve to win Community-Apprentice. Young people present the problem they identified, what they did about it and the difference they made. Their business mentors support their case by highlighting examples of how they have developed key competencies throughout the experience. One team from each cluster semifinal is chosen to go through to regional final in the boardroom.

5: GRADUATION EVENT

A film of this final boardroom event is shown and the winner announced at a graduation event in July. This is also when all young people are presented with their personal competencies profile.

3: THE PITCHING CHALLENGEIn weekly coaching sessions, students are supported to structure their plans clarifying how their project will have a positive social impact and how they will measure this. Community-apprentices use a range of communication methods e.g. letters, meetings and presentations, to engage potential stakeholders, and secure support including resources, they need for their projects. In December teams come together at cluster events (five schools per cluster) to pitch their plans in Dragons Den style event for an investment of up to £300 per team to help them to deliver their projects.

OUR PROGRAMME

To be responsible for all aspects of setting up and running 10 -12 Envision groups across 5 - 6 allocated schools (these figures may be subject to local variations).

To recruit an agreed number of young people within each of your allotted schools using a range of recruitment methods including presentations at assemblies.

To stimulate students’ interest in social problems and support them to find out more about those issues which most spark their interest, including facilitating links with specialist organisations within their community.

To sustain young people’s commitment and motivate them to achieve key milestones throughout the ten-month programme, including completing three project sub-challenges.

To be responsible for a case load of regular adult volunteers, where relevant, inspiring and supporting them to help you to support your Envision groups.

To ensure that young people are supported to make the biggest possible impact they can on their chosen issue so that they recognise their power to make a difference.

To ensure that young people are effectively supported to reflect on their experiences in order to develop and demonstrate a set syllabus of personal qualities and competencies.

To build relationships with assigned link teachers within your schools so that you can gain their support to deliver projects, for example by organising meeting space and ensuring young people can be released for events.

To maintain accurate information about students, including their participation and development, on our Salesforce database.

To support the organisation of pan-regional events as part of a wider team effort.

To produce copy and photos to enable corporate partners and schools to shine a light on young people’s achievements.

To participate in national programme reviews and proactively contribute to the process of continuous improvement.

To uphold organisational values and model good character and social consciousness among volunteers and young people.

Please note that this job description serves only as a guideline for your responsibilities and is not a definitive list. As with any fast-moving organisation, staff roles can be subject to change to meet new priorities and therefore you may, on occasions, be required to take on other jobs as necessary.

RESPONSIBILITIES

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Criteria

Essential/ Desirable

Demonstrated in application (A), interview (I) or selection test (T)

Degree or relevant equivalent training/experience E A

Some experience of working with young people E A/I

Demonstrable experience of some sort of social action (campaigning, fundraising, volunteering)

E A/I

Varied administrative work in an office environment D A/I

Experience of managing or co-ordinating projects (e.g. Producing a play or running an event)

D A/I

Experience of motivating and coordinating volunteers D A/I

Criteria Essential/ Desirable

Demonstrated in application (A), interview (I) or selection test (T)

Social consciousness: a demonstrable interest in environmental and social issues

E I

A dynamic, fun and creative personality E I

Ability to engage young people’s interest and facilitate group activities. E T

Creative thinking and an ability to solve problems E T

A willingness to inspire and work with people of different ages and back-grounds towards a common goal.

E I

A willingness to take on responsibility and a desire to learn through new experiences

E I

Organised and able to manage oneself prioritising effectively E I

A belief in Envision’s mission, vision and values E I

PERSON SPECIFICATION

You’ll bring an ability to inspire and engage young people, partly as a result of having your own social action stories to tell and through having a firm belief in the potential of young people to effect change. You’ll want to support young people to develop their personal competencies by giving them space and support to take risks and try out new ways of doing things. You’ll want to enable them to achieve their own goals, rather than stipulate how things should be done. Envision wouldn’t be where it is today without giving opportunities to ambitious and competent people. If you think you are a great fit and you meet most of the criteria but lack experience in ‘desirable’ areas please do get in touch. We are more interested in meeting the right person and supporting them to achieve than someone who can tick boxes but has no room to grow.

Envision is an equal opportunities employer and applications are invited from black and ethnic minority candidates, as these are groups that are underrepresented on Envision’s staff.

The salary offered for this post is £341.25 per week (+ London zones 1-2 travel card) (rising in November in line with the Living Wage). Salary will be paid monthly in arrears.

The post will be managed by a Programme Manager, under the supervision of the Regional Manager.

The position is a full-time, fixed-term contract; starting on 21st August 2017. Normal working hours are 35 per week (excluding lunch breaks). Staff are, however, generally expected to work such additional hours as are reasonably necessary to meet the needs of the organisation or as are necessary to perform the duties of the role. It may be necessary to work occasional weekends for which time off in lieu is offered.

In addition to public holidays, staff are entitled to 25 days leave per annum pro-rata.

To apply, please submit your CV and a covering letter of no more than two sides which should set out:• Why you are interested in the role• How you meet the criteria set out within the experience section (only) of the person specification.

Applications should be submitted via email to recruitment@envision.org.uk, and accompanied by an Equal Opportunities Form and a Declaration of Criminal Convictions form.

The deadline for application is 9am Friday 14th July. Interviews will be held on Tuesday 18th July.

Please note, we will only be contacting candidates who have been shortlisted for interview. Therefore, if we have not contacted you within two working weeks of the closing date please assume you have been unsuccessful. Incomplete applications will not be considered. We also regret to inform you that, due to the high volume of applications we receive, we will be unable to provide you with feedback regarding your application.

Thank you for your interest in the role.

TERMS AND CONDITIONS

APPLICATION PROCESS