The Education Access Coordinator will equip young asylum seekers and refugees to access further (FE) and higher education (HE) through advice and guidance, 1:1 casework and training for other professionals.
This role sits within the Education Access team: everything we do is focussed on supporting young refugees and asylum seekers into an appropriate form of education from primary school right the way up to university.
The team is separated into three work streams: access to schools, access to FE and access to HE. We also run a national email and telephone advice service through which young people, their families and the professionals who support them, can receive timely and accurate advice and support about any aspect of accessing education in the UK.
This role straddles the access to FE and HE streams of work and, although it would be helpful to have some experience of working in these sectors, our experience is that this knowledge can be taught and is not as important to us as other qualities and experience.
The successful candidate will, however, need to be able to understand and retain a great deal of complex information and then clearly articulate this to others both verbally and in writing. The ideal candidate would be someone who would relish becoming an expert in refugee access to FE and HE and would enjoy the problem solving element of navigating complex regulations to find the right solution for an individual struggling to access education.
The successful candidate will also need to have experience of and enjoy working with vulnerable young people both individually and in groups. A key element of this role is ongoing casework with individuals - where you will need to build a supportive and trusting relationship over the long term - alongside running one-off workshops for large groups where the priority is to quickly gain young people’s confidence and attention.
Finally, the successful candidate will be responsible for representing REUK’s access pillar externally. You will co-deliver training to a high standard as well as maintaining relationships with key stakeholders including local authorities, FE colleges, universities and other NGOs - it is therefore imperative that you have excellent people skills.
This role can be done 4 or 5 days per week, depending on preference (salary would be pro rata for 4 days).