About Breakthrough

Breakthrough is a social enterprise that trains and selects exceptional prison leavers and provides them with expert training, to bring diverse, inspiring talent to businesses through our fully-supported apprenticeships. We transform lives and communities through the impact we have on the individuals and businesses we work with and through reducing reoffending. We run two main programmes: a pre-apprenticeship course in prison and the community followed by digital apprenticeships. The objective of the pre-apprenticeship programme is to get our Associates ready and excited for the world of work and to develop the soft skills that all careers value alongside the specific technical skills that are required for the apprenticeship. The programme is also an opportunity for our employers to get to know the students better and kick off the recruitment process.

We are in a rapid growth phase. As a team, we are ambitious and driven. We are just as passionate about our people as the social impact we aim to have. We invest in learning and development and are flexible around responsibilities to suit an individual’s growth plan. We want someone to grow with us.

The role: Prison Programme Lead

We are looking for someone to manage our growing community of prisons, to have an innovative approach to tailoring our programme for prisons and to creatively deliver our programmes in prisons.

This role will be one of many roles who deliver programmes; this role specifically has the expertise of working in a prison environment. For programme delivery, the role is focused on providing an excellent experience for the participants and to manage all the external volunteers who support the delivery of the programme.

This role will also be responsible for supporting the rest of the Breakthrough team to understand and adapt to the prison environment.

Key responsibilities include:

• Managing multiple prison relationships
• Reviewing and tailoring the programme design to fit the needs of the prisons we work with and the prison population specifically
• Developing ongoing training and support for new staff members to work successfully within the prison environment
• Facilitating sessions with the men around confidence, communication and identity
• Coaching and providing 1-2-1 support with the men
• Facilitating sessions to support the students to try their new tech knowledge. There is no expectation for this position to have technical knowledge, but the successful candidate will need to guide students through technical projects which have been set by the experts
• Manage all administrative elements of delivering the programme in prison
• Planning and managing specific programme delivery in prison, including external speakers
• Depending on role and expertise this role could be expanded to include leadership activities and working on the overall business strategy

The ideal candidate will:

• Be an excellent facilitator and able to engage with people from different backgrounds and and who have different communication/learning styles
• Have experience working in a prison environment
• Have experience of organising and facilitating large complex programmes (at least two programmes)
• Have excellent organisational and communication skills
• Be ambitious and bring energy and innovation to each element of the role