Trustees Job Pack
Introduction:
Grief Encounter offers free, specialist bereavement support services to children, young people and their families, who have experienced the death of someone close, through support and counselling across England and Wales.
We aim to give every child and young person a voice for their grief and access to help when they need it most, we understand children grieve differently to adults. Our experienced team of qualified bereavement therapists are passionate about providing individually tailored support, to help work through the grieving process and find ways through what might be some of their darkest moments.
Additionally, Grief Encounter brings the struggles surrounding childhood grief to the forefront in schools, colleges and workplaces, through raising awareness, education and specialist training.
Our Vision is that every bereaved child and their family in the UK receives access to quality support to help alleviate the pain caused by the death of someone close.
Our Mission is to be one of the UK’s leading providers of high-quality support services for bereaved children and their families.
Our Values are:
Caring: providing compassion, empathy and kindness
Accepting: through listening, hearing and helping making sense
Remembering: together and alone, publicly and privately
Innovative: information, reliable and creative
Non-judgemental: ensuring an honest, empowering, understanding and respectful approach
Genuine: demonstrating caring, sharing, fun and humour
Our Objectives are:
· To relieve some of the emotional distress caused to children and young people by the death of a parent or significant other.
· To improve the long-term emotional and psychological health and well-being of bereaved children, young people and their families.
· To raise awareness of issues for bereaved children and young people and promote the value of bereavement support.
What we are looking for:
Trustees with skills and experience in the following areas which we have identified as gaps on our Board, (You do not need to have held a prior Trustee position):
· Legal and statutory matters
· A strong personal commitment to equity, diversity and inclusion
· Schools/education and/or experience of working in a children’s’ charity
· Children’s services/mental health services and knowledge of current legislation in this field
· Experience of clinical counselling/or bereavement services
· Knowledge of the new initiatives in the Health Service, such as Integrated Health Boards
Grief Encounter actively promotes equality of opportunity for all and encourages applications from a wide range of candidates. To enable us to deliver our work to the best of our abilities and to live our values, we particularly welcome applications from diverse backgrounds, with a particular emphasis for people from Black, Asian minority ethnic backgrounds, women, the LGBTQ+ community and disabled people, who are significantly under-represented on our Board. In addition, we particularly encourage applications from those with lived experience of childhood bereavement.
Role of our Board of Trustees:
The main role of the Board is determine the charity’s mission and purpose and guard the charity’s ethos and values.
Trustees are appointed for a four year term and can serve consecutive terms.Trustees serving on Grief Encounter’s Board would usually be expected to commit to the role for a minimum of 10 days per year.Board members also take part in specific committee functions, although this is dependent of individual Trustee experience and availability.
An Enhanced DBS clearance is required for this post, which will be processed by Grief Encounter on your behalf. We provide a mandatory induction and on-boarding training programme.
The role of trustee is not accompanied by any financial remuneration, although reasonable expensesare reimbursed.
Trustee Role Description
Key responsibilities:
· Act as an ambassador for the charity
· Have a collective responsibility to help shape the strategic direction and provide leadership to ensure that Grief Encounter is an effective and safe organisation.
· To ensure they are informed and confident to establish sound, effective open and supportive relationships with the Corporate Management Team and other staff.
· Fulfil all legal duties and responsibilities of a trustee: ensuring good governance and financial health
· Ensure Grief Encounter operates within its charitable objectives
· Supporting fundraising
· Promoting clinical excellence and research based practice
Person specification:
· Commitment to Grief Encounters vision, mission and values
· An understanding of a Trustee Board and the charity sector
· Strategic vision
· Time commitment
· Ability to help build and strengthen collaborative partnerships
· Passionate, strong team player
· Understanding of legal duties, responsibilities and liabilities of trusteeship