Volunteer HR-focused trustee for Youthline | inVOLve Community Services

Do you want to support the running of a longstanding, free and highly-effective counselling service for young people? You could be a trustee for Bracknell-based charity, Youthline.

What difference will you make?

What do we get? Your strategic skills, knowledge, understanding or experience Your abilities to influence plans for our charity’s future Enhancement to our overall governance and the Board of trustees; improvement in our charity governance and operations Your participation in our collective decision-making, contributing to all areas of our charity work Your enthusiasm What do our beneficiaries get? The ability to continue our support for young people, parents and carers A forward-looking and agile organisation, with a well-informed and well-managed Board of trustees What do YOU get as a volunteer trustee with our organisation? An opportunity to exercise your strategic planning skills, probably in a different environment or context An opportunity to influence and collectively-lead an organisation supporting young people A chance to expand and implement your understanding of our work counselling young people A chance to augment your experience of charities A boost to your career and CV, if needed Satisfaction of helping an organisation that supports young people, thus giving something back to your community

What are we looking for?

Here is some of what we would expect from our trustees. We know that you may also need training and support from employees, from other trustees and from external organisations, and that that will be forthcoming, as necessary, to build on any area. Understanding of the needs of our beneficiaries is desirable; an empathy with them is essential Clear commitment to equity, diversity and inclusion, valuing differences to make better decisions and deliver better services for our beneficiaries Understanding of good HR practice in recruiting, supporting and retaining employees is essential Experience of the use, and understanding, of HR/employment legislation is important, together with understanding its contextual implementation Understanding of good practice in recruiting, supporting and retaining volunteers would be welcome Strategic vision; good, independent judgement; ability to think creatively, tempered by pragmatism and reality Ability to cooperatively work with the team of trustees, bringing impartiality and objectivity to decision-making Skills and ability to listen, even to dissenting views Willingness to speak your mind and to challenge other trustees and employees with good intent; able to make unpopular recommendations to the Board, if necessary Skills to analyse proposals, examine their strategic consequences and make concise recommendations Secure personal access to digital communication and able to competently use those resources Commitment to the organisation; willingness and ability to devote the necessary time & effort While experience and understanding of charity law and governance can be useful, we strongly welcome people without prior charity trustee experience in order to increase the diversity of our Board; training in those areas is provided Having appropriate personal and professional contacts & networks, with willingness to draw on those as needed Willingness to be available to our employees for advice and enquiries on a scheduled or ad-hoc basis

What will you be doing?

Set up in 1988, now a Charitable Company Limited by Guarantee, last year Youthline celebrated 35 successful years, offering more than 600 counselling hours to young people every month. Demand and complexity of services continue to increase, and we have thus improved space and availability to meet that demand. Our anniversary year meant a new logo, and in 2023/24, our income was maintained at £220k, with a successful funding bid. We’ve increased our people, both volunteers and employees, and need to ensure we’re supporting them fully. The role and what we are looking for in a new trustee Trustees are the people who make the top-level decisions for our charity. Our Board includes people with experience and skills in governing a youth counselling charity, and we require new trustees to have empathy with our cause and our beneficiaries. You don’t necessarily need prior experience of charity trusteeship, as full induction and guidance from our trustees and staff will be provided, including access to external training, as needed. We are looking for more than one new trustee to add your skills to our Board if you have experience, abilities or interest in employee and volunteer support, and have some HR skills from a governance (not day-to-day operational) perspective, we’d really like to talk with you. If you are unsure your abilities or experience fit our needs, please ask we’re flexible how people can contribute to our charity. If you can think strategically and plan long-term, you have the primary skills needed by our trustees; you’ll also need to be able to work collectively with other Board members. Support from our paid employees is always available, as they deal with the day-to-day running of the organisation. We are a charity not a business, but we apply business principles to governing our organisation. We are looking for people from a variety of backgrounds to join our Board, and want to expand the diversity of our board, in all meanings of the word, strongly welcoming applications from people from less-represented groups. We ask for up to five hours of your time per month, less at some times of year, which includes all meetings, discussions, etc.  You will need access to digital communications, as some of our charity’s business is run that way, with quarterly Board meetings face-to-face in Bracknell.