Garvald Edinburgh is a long-established Scottish charity supporting adults with learning disabilities through creative day opportunities, workshops, community participation, and public-facing social enterprise activities. Rooted in the principles of social therapy inspired by Rudolf Steiner, Garvald places creativity, respect, rhythm, individuality, and community at the centre of personal development.
The organisation exists to offer adults with learning disabilities meaningful opportunities to develop skills, confidence, and a sense of belonging, achieved through purposeful creative work, strong community integration, and innovative social enterprise.
Operating across multiple sites in Edinburgh, Garvald employs approximately 180 staff and has an annual turnover of over £4.5 million. The organisation is entering a period of important development, guided by a multi-year strategic plan that includes organisational review, enhancing financial stability, facilities planning, digital transformation, and the continued growth of social enterprise activity. This is a pivotal moment in Garvalds history, offering the opportunity to shape the organisation’s future while strengthening its values-driven culture.
The Board of Trustees is seeking a Chief Executive Officer to lead Garvald through this next phase. The CEO will provide strategic, operational, cultural, and organisational leadership, ensuring that Garvald continues to deliver high-quality, ethical, and person-centred services across all sites.
Reporting to the Chair and supported by a strong Senior Management Team, the CEO will shape and implement long-term strategy, embed a distributed leadership model, oversee financial sustainability, and strengthen governance, compliance, and risk management. They will also act as the organisation’s principal ambassador, building and nurturing relationships with commissioners, funders, partners, staff, members, and families.
The successful candidate will be someone who can hold complexity without losing clarity, lead change without compromising care, and inspire confidence and trust through their presence, integrity, and values-led approach. You will be confident in leading a large, multi-site organisation, with a strong understanding of regulation, finance, workforce dynamics, and governance. You will have experience of strategic leadership, organisational change, and financial sustainability, alongside the ability to engage effectively with all stakeholders—from trustees and commissioners to staff, members, and families.
Above all, the next CEO will be someone who combines strategic rigour with emotional intelligence, humility, and steadiness. You will be capable of setting direction, making difficult decisions, and developing innovation, while remaining grounded in Garvald’s values and the principles of social therapy.
This is a rare opportunity to lead a respected, innovative, and values-driven organisation at a transformative moment, ensuring that Garvald Edinburgh continues to be a place where adults with learning disabilities can reach their fullest potential and make a lasting contribution to the wider community.
Join our Board of Trustees at Space @ The Broomhouse Hub.
At Space, we believe in creating opportunities that bring people together, build confidence, and strengthen our community. Across more than 20 projects, we support people of all ages and backgrounds to learn, work, connect and thrive. From our community café and kitchen training programmes, to youth work, employability, carers support, and wellbeing services — everything we do aims to make life better in Broomhouse and beyond.
Our Mission
To build a thriving, inclusive and resilient community where everyone has the opportunity to reach their potential.
Our Values
Why join us now?
It’s a really exciting time to become a Trustee. We’re currently delivering our 2024–2027 Strategy, focused on strengthening our community impact, growing sustainable enterprises, and supporting our brilliant team to make lasting change.
You’ll join a passionate, skilled and supportive board helping guide the next chapter of Space’s story.
The Role of a Trustee
Our Trustees play a vital role in three key areas: Strategy, Governance and Risk Management.
You’ll work with the leadership team as a critical friend — supporting, questioning, and inspiring us to stay true to our mission while continuing to innovate and grow.
Each trustee also “adopts” one of our services or projects, acting as a link between the Board and front line staff. This helps Trustees stay connected to the people and communities we serve, and brings valuable insight back to board discussions.
Trustees with specific professional experience engage in one of our four subgroups – Finance, Governance, People, Enterprise.
Right now we’re particularly keen to add to the existing financial skills of our Board, ideally welcoming someone with Management Accounting expertise, especially within SMEs or social enterprises. Someone with experience of being a charity treasurer would be highly beneficial.
That said, we’d love to hear from anyone who shares our values and brings experience in areas like fundraising, communications, enterprise, wellbeing, or facilities management.
Do I have to live in Edinburgh?
Not at all! We welcome applications from potential Trustees living anywhere. However, there is a requirement to attend an in-person Board meeting in Edinburgh once every two months. Attendance online can be arranged under special circumstances.
Our Trustees fall into two categories:
Your Commitment
We truly value your time and experience, and we keep the commitment meaningful but manageable:
Trustee Induction & Training
We provide a comprehensive induction and ongoing training programme to support all trustees in their role. This includes sessions on our governance structure, key policies, finance & budgeting, health & safety, safeguarding, and an overview of our current projects and strategic priorities.
Trustees also take part in regular development sessions throughout the year.
All new trustees have the option to be buddied up with an existing trustee while they find their feet.
Remuneration/Expenses
This is an unpaid role, however reasonable expenses associated with the role may be reimbursed.
Sound like something you’d be interested in?
If you share our values, believe in community-led change, and want to make a real difference — we’d love to hear from you.
Volunteer Chair and Treasurer (Trustees) – Help Dads Rock Support Dads and Families across Scotland
Dads Rock is a fast-growing, dynamic Scottish charity with a clear vision: Children thrive when Dads thrive. We are looking for passionate and experienced individuals to join our Board of Trustees.
We are currently recruiting for two key volunteer leadership roles:
This is a fantastic opportunity to contribute your skills to a critical mission with a low time commitment (approx. 2-3 hours per month) and a high societal impact.
The Finance Officer for the Community One Stop Shop plays a crucial role in ensuring the efficient financial management of the organization. Reporting to the Board Treasurer and CEO the Finance Officer will be responsible for maintaining accurate financial records, preparing financial reports, and supporting budgeting and forecasting activities. This role is essential in upholding financial transparency, compliance, and accountability within the charity.
Ark is a major provider of Housing, Care and Support to people with long term and enduring conditions such as learning disabilities, mental health issues, dementia and autism.
Ark supports people to live independently in their own homes providing everything from a few hours a week social and life admin support to 24/7 care supporting with personal care, medication, household tasks, attending appointments and leisure activities.
We have lots of opportunities across Scotland for our Support Worker roles. As we provide full training no previous is experience is required.
If you are enthusiastic about supporting people to live their best lives, then apply now to join our team!
Your main duties will include but not be limited to:
Previous experience of the following is an advantage but not essential as Ark will provide full training: Care Worker, Social worker, Home Carer, Case Worker, Care Assistant, Autism Support Worker, Personal Care Assistant , Social Care Worker.
View our job outline, find out what you working week could look like and hear from our current Support Workers on Arks website arkha.org.uk/work-with-us
Why Ark?
In return for your valuable contribution, Ark will also offer you:
Our employees told us in a recent survey that they stay with Ark because they believe in our values, we have supportive managers who continually appreciate their staff and they love making a positive difference in our supported peoples lives, helping them to achieve their dreams.
Ark would love to hear from you whether you are an experienced Support Worker or new to Social Care.