Project Officer (Knowledge Transfer Partnership)

School of Language, Cultures and Societies, Faculty of Arts, Humanities and Cultures & Hope and Homes for Children
Salary: £38,000 - £44,000 + a Personal Development budget of £4,000
This KTP role will be based at Hope and Homes for Children, London Office
Do you hold a degree in a subject related to Youth Studies, International Development, Childcare Reform, Safeguarding, Community Work or a related subject? Do you have a strong background in quantitative and qualitative participatory research methods and evaluation? Would you like to work on a project designed to deliver practical and sustainable change?
Systemic bias drives children into harmful orphanages. This project will develop an accountability toolkit for application at scale to address the global impact of institutionalisation on 5.4 million children. This KTP will position Hope and Homes for Children (HHC) as sector leader in navigating the competing demands of 'upward accountability' to donors and 'downward accountability' to the communities it serves. This is a long-established tension in the sector. While donors frequently wish to see the development of programmes that put the needs of families and communities first, the charities they fund to do this are generally constrained by a range of factors (e.g. formal reporting requirements of due diligence; the overarching strategic goals of donors that might not fully align with the needs of an individual community).While there is a growing body of evidence that highlights the need and, crucially, the benefits of rebalancing accountability in this context,
to date there has been no effective practical implementation of this. Working in partnership with colleagues from the University of Leeds, with whom HHC has a strong and long-standing relationship, the Project Officer, through this KTP, will develop a Radical Youth Accountability Toolkit (RYAT) that will give HHC Innovative, sector leading knowledge and capabilities to address this problem allowing HHC to:
1.Substantially increase its funding base.
2.Grow and upskill of its workforce.
3.Support other organisations to address this issue through the creation of a dedicated Radical Accountability Unit within the organisation (post-KTP), which will share best practice.
Hope and Homes for Children (HHC) is an international charitable organisation working across 10 countries through approximately 200 staff, plus volunteer networks and partner organisations. Since its inception, HHC has remained committed to ensuring every child experiences the love and security of a family home. Orphanages, contrary to common belief, confine children and subject them to risks of abuse and neglect. This stems from a flawed approach treating children as commodity/problems rather than active participants who have the right to have their voices heard in the development and delivery of services ostensibly created to support them.
The University of Leeds team consists of Professor Paul Cooke, a specialist in the use of participatory arts as a tool for youth-led development and Dr Katie Hodgkinson, Lecturer in Education in Global Development, School of Politics and International Studies. Cooke has led youth-development projects in the UK, Germany, South Africa, Nepal, Colombia, Iraq, India, Bangladesh and Colombia. Hodgkinson, who will be the University manager for this project officer role, specialises in interdisciplinary and youth-led approaches to education and global development. She has a wealth of experience working on international, interdisciplinary and partner-oriented projects. Hodgkinson is also currently leading a project in Ethiopia and Bangladesh working with the British Council to ensure their programming contributes to youth-led social change.