The Youth Endowment Fund

Senior Change Designer - Area Leaders Programme

Reports to: Area Leaders Programme Change Lead
Salary: £52,700
Contract: 2-year fixed term
Location: Central London, Hybrid*
Closing date: Friday 10th October 2025 at 12pm

About the Youth Endowment Fund

We’re here to prevent children and young people becoming involved in

violence. We do this by finding out what works and building a movement to put

this knowledge into practice.

Last  year,  244  people  in  England  and  Wales  tragically  died  after  being

assaulted with a knife. Of these, 32 were children. Every child captured in these

numbers is an important member of our community and society has a duty to

protect them. Even when violence doesn’t strike directly, we know that the fear

of violence has a terrible effect on children’s lives.

The  Youth  Endowment  Fund  exists  to  try  and  permanently  change  things.  To

succeed,  we  must  deeply  understand  how  to  reduce  the  violence  that  affects

young  people.  We  then  have  to  make  this  information  highly  relevant  and

accessible to the people making decisions for vulnerable young people. In practice,

this means we need to find out what works and what doesn’t through high quality

qualitative and  quantitative research  into  children’s  lives.  We  then  must  convert

this into really accessible content on what works, how delivery organisations (like

schools,  councils,  police  forces  and  more)  can  change  what  they  do,  how  the

systems  have  to  change.  We  then  need  to  work  with  and  inspire  those  making

decisions. Together, we believe we can change things permanently for children.

At the heart of this work is our new Area Leaders Programme. It provides support

to local councils on what they can do in their towns and cities to change things.

To work, the sessions need to be brilliantly designed with great materials and really

well delivered. This is where you come in.

1

About the Area Leaders Programme

The Area Leaders Programme (ALP) brings together local partnerships in a town

or a city to better protect children from being drawn into violence. These

partnerships often include the police, youth justice services, children’s services,

health, education, youth and community organisations.

We aim to do this by supporting areas to develop the five Ps of violence

prevention:

•  Partnerships: Build strong, accountable partnerships with clear roles,

governance, and measurable goals.

•  Profile: Understand the local drivers, context, and patterns of serious

violence.

•  People: Identify the children most at risk and ensure they get the right

support at the right time.

•  Places: Pinpoint high-risk locations and take action to make them safer.
•  Practice: Share and apply best practice consistently across all key

agencies.

Through ALP, partnerships will be offered:

•

Learning resources and workshops that bring together the best available

evidence on topics related to the 5Ps

•  Bespoke sessions to reflect on their local context, problem solve and action

plan together

•  A community of practice to share learning with other areas
•  Funding for a part time local coordinator role to help embed and sustain

joint working across the partnership

Following a successful pilot in four local authority areas, we’re expanding into ten

new areas in 2025/26 helping more places work collaboratively to keep children

safe.

2

About the role

As Senior Designer and Facilitator, you’ll play a vital role in shaping how ALP

supports local partnerships. You’ll help turn evidence into practical action by

designing engaging workshops, tools and resources that help professionals plan

and work together more effectively. You will also take a leading role in facilitating

active and inspiring workshops.

You’ll work closely with the ALP Change Lead, Senior Manager, our delivery

partners and the wider Change team to make sure we’re constantly improving the

support we offer.

Key Responsibilities

Design and Delivery

•  Design creative, evidence-informed workshop plans and activities.
•  Facilitate engaging workshops, both online and in person.
•  Create visual tools that make complex ideas clear and easy to understand.
•

Incorporate the voices and experiences of young people into ALP

workshops.

•  Develop and test tools that support areas to map local services, referral

pathways and gaps in provision.

•  Develop creative approaches to problem solving.

Collaboration and Support

•  Work closely with local partnerships to help them identify challenges,

opportunities and practical next steps, including creating local action

plans.

•  Support partnerships to navigate complexity and implement plans in the

context of complex systems.

•  Work as part of a collaborative, learning-oriented team, helping us

continually refine our approach.

3

Learning and Improvement

•  Capture insights from workshops and feed them back into improving the

programme.

•  Use design thinking to support other parts of YEF’s change work where

needed.

About You

•  You’re passionate about helping to keep children safe from violence. You

want to play a key role in reducing youth violence and believe in the power

of evidence and brilliant design to drive meaningful change.

•  You’re passionate about brilliant design and skilled at making it happen.
You bring creativity and expertise, with experience in a relevant design

discipline: this could be service design, systems design, speculative design,

policy design or a similar field. A formal design qualification is a bonus.

•  You care about clarity and communication. You can take complex ideas
and make them simple, visually and verbally. You enjoy designing tools,

frameworks and resources that help others think, plan and act more

effectively.

•  You’re comfortable with complexity. You enjoy untangling difficult problems

and helping people navigate tricky systems. You bring structure and

practical approaches that make change feel possible.

•  You’re a confident and engaging facilitator. You’re comfortable running

workshops with professionals from a range of backgrounds, encouraging

discussion, drawing insights and helping groups reach shared priorities and

action plans.

•  You get things done. You’re organised, delivery-focused, and produce high
quality work, even under pressure. You work independently and to a high

standard.

4

•  You’re curious, creative and open-minded. You like testing ideas, iterating
and improving based on what you learn. You enjoy bringing fresh thinking

and trying different ways of doing things.

•  You have a commitment to equality, diversity and inclusion. You believe

and act in a way that celebrates and encourages a range of experiences,

views and values.

You must have significant experience in:

•  A relevant design discipline, this could be service design, systems design,

speculative design, policy design or a similar field.

•  Applying design skills to address social purpose and/or inequalities.
•  Workshop facilitation with participants from diverse professional

backgrounds.

Ideally you will also have this sort of experience (but it’s not necessary to apply):
•  A formal qualification in a relevant area of design, or applying design for

social purpose, or relevant experience.

•  Firsthand knowledge of the system that supports highly vulnerable children,
particularly those at risk of or involved in violence. You understand the

barriers these children face and what it takes to get them the right support.

While it’s not a criterion, we’re especially interested to hear from applicants who
have lived experience of youth violence.

It’s also important to us that the people we hire do not discriminate. We believe

in being inclusive and giving everyone an equal chance to succeed. Applications

are welcome from all regardless of age, sex, gender identity, disability, marriage

or civil partnership, pregnancy and maternity, religion or belief, race, sexual
orientation, transgender status or social economic background.

5

Hybrid Working Details
The office is based in Central London. Those living in and around London are

expected to be in the office for a minimum of 2 days per week. If you live outside

of London and work remotely, you’ll be expected to work from the London office 2
days per month.

As part of our commitment to flexible working we will consider a range of options

for the successful applicant. All options can be discussed at the interview stage.

To Apply

To apply, please send a CV, answering the application questions below and
complete the monitoring form by clicking on the "Apply for this" button by Friday
10th October 2025 by 12pm.

When applying for this role, please ensure that your cover letter answers the
questions below within a maximum of 1000 words. The questions are:

1.  How do you think design approaches can help multi-agency practitioners:

a) understand evidence and best practice and b) work together to

implement evidence-based approaches in complex local systems?
2.  Can you give an example of a time that you designed or facilitated a
challenging workshop? How did you approach it and what was the

outcome?

Interview Process
This will be a one stage interview process. The interview will take place on the
week commencing 20th October 2025.

PLEASE NOTE: We do not sponsor work permits and you will be required to provide

proof of your eligibility to work in the UK.

Benefits Include

• £1,000 professional development budget annually

6

• 28 days holiday plus Bank Holidays

• Four half days for volunteering activities

• Employee Assistance Programme – 24hr phone line for free confidential support

• Volunteering days - 4 half days per year

• Death in service - 4 times annual salary

• Flexible hours. Core office hours 10am – 4pm

• Financial support including travel and hardship loans

• Employer contributed pension of 5%

Personal Data
Your personal data will be shared for the purposes of the recruitment exercise.

This includes our HR team, interviewers (who may include other partners in the

project and independent advisors), relevant team managers and our IT service

provider if access to the data is necessary for performance of their roles. We do

not share your data with other third parties, unless your application for

employment is successful and we make you an offer of employment. We will then

share your data with former employers to obtain references for you. We do not
transfer your data outside the European Economic Area.

7