Recruitment for this role has now closed.
Contract: funded until September 2025
Salary: £30,076 per year for a 28 hours working week (FTE £37,595)
Hours: 4 days a week. Enquiries about flexible working are welcome, although there is a preference that the post-holder can work on Monday to Wednesdays
Location: home-based from the UK. Some occasional travel (usually to London, Sheffield or Manchester) for team meetings (travel costs are reimbursed)
Deadline: 9.00am on Monday 13th November 2023
Interviews: Friday 24 or Tuesday 28 November
About Synergi
Synergi is a programme of work which focuses on the intersection of racial justice and mental health. It had a previous iteration as a knowledge hub, bringing together research and network building.
In its new iteration it is hosted by NSUN. In this new phase of Synergi, our focus is on shifting power and resource to grassroots groups and community organisers working on the intersection of racial justice and mental health. We will be working with people doing lived experience work on the ground, who are imagining and building alternatives. We want to connect, amplify, celebrate and resource this work.
Synergi has four main workstreams:
- Grants Programme – Small grants programme redistributing resources to grassroots and user-led groups working on mental health and racial justice.
- Community Responses to Mental Health – This work will include those funded under round 1 of our grants scheme but also round 2, with the aim to support the work that has historically already been done in this space. The activities under this workstream will be guided by the needs of the community in shifting the conversation around mental health and racial justice.
- Supporting Movement Spaces – We are aware that grassroots activism often lacks access to resources so, in addition to the grants scheme we are working to support this work in a variety of ways, both practically but also holistically to ensure that those working on the front line are sustained and replenished.
- Remembrance As Resistance – This workstream will address the historical epistemic imbalance of activism by racialised communities in the UK by documenting this work whilst also creating intergenerational conversations and networks.
Mental ill-health, distress or trauma is often caused by and/or exacerbated by racial injustice and carceral forms of state violence. Our aim is for Synergi to support the work of groups at the frontline of challenging this, and to effectively contribute to building collective memory and power on mental health and abolition.
Funding from Lankelly Chase is secured until September 2025, and it is hoped that additional funding will be secured to allow Synergi to continue to grow beyond this period.
About NSUN (the National Survivor User Network)
NSUN is a charity and a membership organisation. We are a network of grassroots, user-led mental health groups and people with lived experience of mental ill-health, distress and trauma. We connect, support and amplify the voices and work of our membership and work towards the redistribution of power and resource in mental health.
NSUN is a user-led organisation, and all staff and trustees have lived experience of mental ill-health, distress or trauma.
Over the past couple of years, NSUN has scaled and changed. This is an exciting time to join an organisation which is growing and embarking upon an exciting new strategic direction, focussed on doing things differently in mental health and beyond.
About the role
This role will be integral to the new phase of Synergi’s work:
- resourcing groups with lived experience of mental ill health to support and develop their work
- helping to connect these groups working at a grassroots level to strengthen wider movements for radical change
- work towards a more equitable redistribution of resources and power
Synergi has already awarded 37 grants of £3000, totalling £111,000 to grassroots and user-led groups working on mental health and racial justice. Between now and September 25 we expect to build on learning from the first round. The Synergi Grants Manager, supported by the wider team, will be responsible for delivering two further rounds of funding alongside a rolling emergency fund.
The successful candidate will need to be ready to hit the ground running and with the support the Synergi Director and other NSUN staff, lead on delivering our second funding round and implementation of the emergency fund in the first three months after joining. To complement the award, we are providing somatic racial justice practices to a cohort of grantees, and it is expected that the Grant Manager will lead this work.
We would particularly welcome applications from individuals from marginalised or racialised communities.
The role is home-based and the NSUN team works remotely. The ability to travel to London and back within one day is required for the role, as well as occasional travel to other parts of the country. There is also a small budget which enables staff to use co-working space with colleagues where possible.
The deadline for applications is 9.00am on Monday 13th November 2023. If you have any feedback or questions about this recruitment pack or require it in a different format, please let us know. We can be contacted on info@nsun.org.uk.
Full details and the job description/person specification are available in the recruitment pack linked below.
If you would like to discuss this role in more detail please contact Debbie Solomon (she/her), Synergi Director, by emailing debbie.solomon@nsun.org.uk.
Job description and person specification
Apply
- Click here to download the application form
- Click here to download the equality and diversity monitoring form
The application form and equality and diversity monitoring form must be completed and returned to info@nsun.org.uk by 9am on Monday 13th November 2023.
Please note that we do not accept CVs/cover letters. Please make sure that all the information about your skills and experience is included in the application form: we recommend you use the full two pages allowed in the “supporting information” section in the application form to explain how you meet each of the points in the person specification.
We are unable to consider applications from candidates living outside of the UK.
Please contact us at info@nsun.org.uk if you need these materials in a different format or any other support in making an application.