Youth Worker (Mentoring)

£31,000 per annum

37.5 hours per week. Some flexible working offered. Role is based on
young people’s lives and includes evening or weekend work.

Permanent

Head of Youth

1 st September 2026

Based at 21, Winchester Road, Camden, London, NW3 3NR

Role Summary

The Youth Worker (Mentoring) will play a vital role in Inspiring Inclusion’s Our Schools, Our Change programme, working alongside the Winch, SYDRC, Camden secondary schools, families, alumni, and local partners to drive meaningful systems change for Black and racially minoritised
young people with adverse childhood experiences.

This role centres on relational, trauma informed, one to one support, helping young people to feel seen, heard, and empowered while wider structural change is underway. The postholder will build trusting, consistent relationships with young people already engaged in the programme, using holistic, strengths based, and participatory approaches that honour their lived experience and leadership.

They will contribute to a rigorous test and learn model, helping the team refine and evidence new ways of working with schools. As a reflective practitioner, they will embrace feedback, learning, and professional development, and bring strong organisational and administrative skills to the role.

Crucially, the Youth Worker (Mentoring) will bring personal experience of racial profiling within state education, enabling deep empathy, authenticity, and insight in their work with young people navigating similar challenges. They will be a collaborative team member committed to equity, inclusion, and long term change, ensuring young people have genuine influence over the decisions shaping their education and their futures.

Programme:

• Support, engage and sustain the involvement of young people, in our youth activities, with a particular focus on black and racially minoritised young people
• Deliver high quality in-person mentoring and participation opportunities to young people, supporting around 10 mentees per term.
• Build trusted, sustained relationships with young people, offering consistent, trauma‑informed support across school and community settings.
• Ensure that activities for young people are aligned with organisational values and goals and that your work meets the programme goals and targets.
• Demonstrate creativity and a proactive approach in advancing the Winch’s youth participation offer
• Provide early help by identifying emerging needs and coordinating timely responses with families, schools, and services.
• Maintain an effective and comprehensive safeguarding culture, policy and practices.
• Support the delivery of the Youth Collaborative, our standing forum for youth engagement, ensuring regular co‑design and co‑production with young people and providing a platform for their participation across the programme.
• Be an active, contributing member of the Winch Youth Team, supporting the wider programme offer, including open access, targeted group work, outreach and detached work, holiday provision and residentials as a when necessary.
• Stay up to date with the external context and draw on your professional networks, resources and connections to enrich the Winch’s aims and delivery.
• Deliver test and learn activities designed to explore the concept of a ‘link worker’ approach which will engage with families, parents, carers, pastoral leads, probation, youth justice, social care and teachers.
  

Partnership

• Engage constructively with our partners, supporting our ambition to effect change and contributing to shared planning, influencing and learning systems and processes.
• Maintain our strong partnerships with local youth providers, schools, local authority, and our donor community, including effectively managing referral relationships with schools.
• Work with external providers and organisations to develop and enable access to appropriate opportunities for young people.
• Promote and champion The Winch in external settings

Monitoring, Learning & Evaluation

• Contribute to the design, testing, and refinement of the link‑worker model, including reflective practice, data collection, and evaluation.
• Take responsibility for maintaining timely and accurate records, including undertaking regular evaluation activity and completing Upshot database inputting of records.
• Work within the framework of our commitment to AMBIT (Adaptive Mentalization Based Integrative Treatment), and MQF (Mentoring Quality Framework) providing evidence-informed approaches that support young people facing complex challenges.
• Explore, capture, interrogate and share learning, applying appropriate theoretical and quality frameworks.
• Ensure internal and external reporting deadlines are met.
• Commit to ongoing learning and continuous improving your practice.
• Ensure effective risk management, through risk assessment, planning, coordination and taking action
• Engage constructively with our learning partner, supporting our ambition to effect change

General Duties

• Proactively manage and record young people's consent, in line with our data protection and information security policies.
• Demonstrate commitment to, and take responsibility for, safeguarding children, young people and adults at risk, in the context of your role.
• Take responsibility for your professional development and learning.
• Attend and participate in individual, staff, trustee and team meetings, supervision, and appraisals, as required.
• Work collaboratively with and provide cover where necessary to other Winch programmes, including attending trips and residentials during school holidays.
• Conduct local outreach to build relationships with local young people outside of the programmes.
• Demonstrate and model the Winch’s values of Joy, Care and Courage, and advance the principles of justice, equity, diversity and inclusion.
• Adhere to and help develop the policies, guidelines and processes of the Winch
• Act as an ambassador for and champion of the Winch.
• Work as part of the Winch’s wider team, ensuring support, collaboration and coordination with colleagues.
• Be ready to work some evenings and weekends

Person Specification

• At least 3 years’ experience of working and engaging with young people in a professional role.
• Experience of providing mentoring (or equivalent 1 to 1 support) to young people
• Experience working with children and young people in community, school, or family support settings.
• Understanding of safeguarding, early help, and multiagency working. Knowledge of the challenges facing young people and families, including structural inequalities and barriers to accessing support.
• Experience building trusted relationships with families and professionals.
• Ability to plan and contribute to project management in a complex and varied environment.
• Excellent communication, interpersonal and presentation skills.
• Robust working knowledge and understanding of safeguarding and child protection for young people.
• Understanding of the principles of justice, equity, diversity and inclusion and demonstrable ability to apply these principles in programme design and youth work practice with young people and their communities.
• Good IT skills, use of Microsoft & G-Suite packages (including, Word, PowerPoint, Excel, etc.)

What else do I need to know?

• The Winch is based at 21 Winchester Road, London NW3 3NR, just a minute’s walk from Swiss Cottage underground station and within walking distance of multiple bus routes.
• This full-time  role includes occasional evening work or weekends, and an annual residential.

The Benefits

• We offer a training budget. You will also be asked to complete mandatory accredited training, which counts towards your continuing professional development. The Winch has an Employee Assistance Programme with Health Assured. This includes access to a wealth of services including counselling, legal information, bereavement support, medical information and CBT online. There is also access to a virtual library of wellbeing
  information. We offer new employees 30 days holiday pro rata per year (including Bank Holidays) and three compulsory closure dates in December. You will have the opportunity to join a contributory pension scheme.

Safeguarding and Child Protection & Equal Opportunities

• The Winch is committed to keeping children, young people and vulnerable adults safe from harm. The successful candidate will be subject to Enhanced DBS checks and an online check.and be required to undertake safeguarding training
• The Winch is committed to the principle of equal opportunity in employment and its employment policies for recruitment are designed to ensure that no job applicant or employee receives less favourable treatment on the grounds of race, colour, nationality, religion or belief, sex, sexual orientation, marital status, age, ethnic and national origin, disability or gender reassignment.

How to apply?

Please apply by sending in a comprehensive CV (maximum 3 pages) and a personal statement outlining how you meet the person specification. Your personal statement must be no longer than 2 pages of A4, with a minimum font size 12. We will not consider applications that do not include a personal statement.

You will be asked to provide the names, positions, organisations and telephone contact numbers of two referees, one of whom should be your current/most recent employer.

References will only be taken once your permission has been granted. In addition, a complete enhanced DBS check is required for new employees at the Winch.

Please apply by sending your application to jobs@thewinch.org. The deadline for submission is Sunday 16th August and shortlisted candidates will be interviewed on Tuesday 25th August.

If you are interested in the role and would like to speak to someone about it, then please feel free to contact soye@thewinch.org

Use of AI Statement
We accept that some applicants will use AI to help plan and submit their job applications. We ask that if you find it helpful to use AI, that you use it with care. We are interested in your specific experiences, your perspectives and your personal potential to contribute to growing our work. Where it is apparent that your application is entirely written by AI, or that your application is simply a recycled composite of other people’s experiences or views, we may not consider it. We are aware that AI can entrench, amplify and advance biases, prejudices and disinformation. An important part of our mission is to dismantle the structures, systems and beliefs that hold young people back. As a result, where you do use AI, we expect you to consider, engage with and actively manage these significant issues and risks and be transparent about your AI use.