Volunteer Charity providing education, legal advice and wellbeing to Londoners seeks trustees

What will you be doing?

The Settlement is seeking three additional trustees to join its Board at an exciting time for the charity.  We recently opened a new centre in Stratford, East London and new trustees will help us increase the reach of our work to even more Londoners in need.  In particular we are growing our mental health services and expanding our range of exciting and innovative opportunities in education, to enable people to forge new careers, develop new interests and to join and enjoy a community of people with shared interests.  The trustees will have the experience to steer the strategic development of the organisation in close collaboration with the CEO and senior management team.  We currently work from two centres, in Stratford and Waterloo. If you live or work in the East of London, particular in the boroughs of Newham and surrounding area, or Southwark, Lambeth and the South East of London we are especially keen to hear from you.      We are seeking people with enthusiasm, good interpersonal skills, and empathy and understanding of our services uses, who are prepared to use their experience and skills to achieve the objectives of the Settlement. Ideally new trustees should have skills that complement those of the existing members of the Board and we are particularly interested in applications from individuals that can demonstrate significant experience in one or more of the following areas: 

Finance – ideally holding a relevant qualification in accounting Education, especially experience on school or higher education governance boards Health, especially mental health provision and public health delivery   

The Board recognises that diversity of trustees is vital if we are to operate with excellence.  We actively encourage applications from people from all backgrounds.  If you'd like to be a Board member but face barriers in applying, we would be glad to support you Being a trustee will enable you to both contribute your current skills and experience to MWS and build new skills, knowledge and experience for yourself.   In particular, trustees will be able to gain the following skills and experiences:

Experience of steering the strategy of a longstanding non-profit organisation Leadership, stakeholder management and influencing skills

What are we looking for?

In addition to professionalism, interpersonal skills and empathy, ideally, new trustees should have skills that complement those of the existing members of the Board and we are particularly interested in applications from individuals that can demonstrate experience in one or more of the following areas: 

Finance – ideally holding a relevant qualification in accounting such as ACCA, CIPFA, ACA, ACMA, CPA, CGMA Education, especially experience on school or higher education governance boards or an education charity Health, especially in mental health provision and public health delivery   High level IT knowledge in system architecture and design  

We are especially interesting in hear from those with lived experience that reflects our service users and those living or working in or near the London boroughs we serve - Newham and the North East and Southward and the South East.  

What difference will you make?

The Mary Ward Settlement is a London charity founded in the 1890s ‘to provide public education and social service for the benefit of the community’. For over a century  our  education centres and our legal services have continued to develop to enable Londoners to improve their life chances. We help people learn new skills, get back into work, access justice, combat social isolation, and enhance their health and wellbeing. Joining our board enables you to play a part in this work by contributing your skills, experience and understanding of the needs of our service users to ensure this extraordinary organisation continues in its mission.