Shakti is a feminist Black Minority Ethnic voluntary organisation which offers information, advocacy, emotional/practical support and refuge/temporary accommodation to all Black Minority Ethnic women and their children, who are experiencing or fleeing domestic abuse.

Post holders will ideally have exceptional leadership and management skills to steer our strong, committed, and skilled outreach team; strong communications, influencing and negotiating skills; experience of working with Black Minority Ethnic (BME) communities. Must have sound knowledge and understanding of equalities issues and the issues affecting BME and/or LGBT women, children, and young people, understanding of the legislative and cultural issues surrounding Gender-Based violence, domestic abuse, honour-based abuse such as forced marriage and female genital mutilation, and their effects on Black Minority Ethnic women, their children, and young people.

Bilingual in Urdu/Hindi/Arabic/Cantonese/Bengali (or any other BME community languages) and fluency in English.

Applicants must have relevant qualification such as degree in Social Work or Community Education and or a minimum of HNC Social and Health Care and SVQ Social Services and Healthcare at SCQF Level 9 or above to meet registration requirements of SSSC or a willingness to self-fund and gain the qualification.

Post involves unsocial and flexible hours including evenings and weekends.

Do you have experience of working with vulnerable children & young people? Are you passionate with the energy to provide high quality individual and group support for children who have experienced or are experiencing domestic abuse? Are you able to demonstrate a flexible, practical and positive approach to working with children and young people? Do you have an understanding and awareness of domestic abuse and a reflective, sensitive, non-judgemental approach? Can you work in a way that promotes equality and empowerment? If so we would like to hear from you.

Are you a skilled communicator who is passionate about improving community responses to domestic abuse? Are you able to engage with people from a variety of backgrounds and deliver learning sessions in a range of settings? East Ayrshire Women’s Aid are looking for a skilled VAW trainer to deliver our multi-agency training programme, preventative education sessions to young people and to work with communities in East Ayrshire to raise awareness of violence against women and girls.

About Us

Zero Tolerance is a Scottish charity working to end men’s violence against women by promoting gender equality and challenging attitudes which normalise violence and abuse. We are a values-led organisation and seek to improve the way we integrate feminism, equality, and diversity into our work. We ensure our HR policies and practices reflect our values (including enhanced parental leave, miscarriage and menopause policies and flexible working) and our salary framework is fair and competitive. We are committed to staff learning and development and have recently launched a paid reading week for all staff and a whole team training programme about feminist leadership.

Our aims

1. We will lead campaigning in Scotland to end all forms of violence against women and girls (VAWG) by raising public and political awareness of its cause and challenging gender inequality.
2. We will challenge and support key institutions to embed VAWG prevention in their work.
3. We will advance and share the evidence base on preventing VAWG.
4. We will make Zero Tolerance a place where feminist leadership happens.

What you’ll do

We are looking for an experienced Policy Officer to join our team and lead on the development of robust, evidence-based policy responses to prevent violence against women and girls. You will support the organisation’s aims by building effective networks, monitoring and analysing public policy and researching and writing reports in line with campaign and policy priorities.

The successful candidate will often work in close collaboration with the women’s sector and other partners to influence key decision makers and stakeholders across local authorities, Scottish and UK governments and third sector organisations.

You will represent Zero Tolerance on advisory and working groups with stakeholders, acting as Chair/Co-chair as required and work with ZT colleagues to identify areas of influence and priority: incorporating the views and needs of marginalised women is essential in the role.

What we need

The successful candidate will have previous experience in a similar role, in a paid or voluntary capacity, with knowledge and understanding of violence against women and gender equality. You’ll be a skilled communicator with the ability to present complex ideas to a variety of audiences including senior politicians, stakeholders and partners.

You will also have:

• A shared understanding of our vision, values, aims and positions
• Understanding of the Scottish political landscape
• The ability to understand complex policy issues, articulate clear and focused responses, and make judgements based on evidence
• Organisational skills, managing both reactive and planned work
• Proven experience of building networks

Zero Tolerance has a commitment to diversity and challenging all forms of inequality alongside gender inequality. We are open to as many different voices as there are experiences, but particularly welcome applications from Minority Ethnic, LGBT, disabled, migrant, and other backgrounds currently underrepresented within the women’s sector.

What do we offer?

• Competitive salary with annual pay progression. We operate a grading structure based on five salary grades. New employees start on point 1 of each salary grade and receive annual increments until the top of the grade is reached. This role is Grade 3 £32,560.27-£35,940
• Staff pension scheme (6% employers’ contribution)
• 28 days annual leave plus 10 public holidays and a flexible working hours policy
• We actively encourage continuous professional development for all our employees and have implemented a paid reading week as well as continuous training opportunities for individual learning and whole team development.