Who we are
Shaw Trust believe in the right of every person in the United Kingdom to live a decent and dignified life through good employment. We are a not-for-profit social enterprise that seeks to improve life chances for employment for people who face social and economic challenges, or who may also be disabled or have complex needs. We the UK’s largest not-for-profit social enterprise in the employability sector.
The Policy Institute is the advocacy engine for Shaw Trust, championing positive change for the people and communities we support, and the sectors we operate within. We advocate policy solutions to the challenges that the people we support, our sector and our society face. To do this, we will continue to learn directly from our delivery of our services, as well as using research to drive improvements in our service delivery.
What we need
We are looking for our first placement in the Shaw Trust’s Policy Institute’s newly launched internship scheme, to support our policy, public affairs and research work for a three-six month period. Our Interns will get a uniquely broad range of high level, high quality policy, research and public affairs experience.
The scheme will be carefully structured to make sure our successful candidates get to experience all that Shaw Trust has to offer as the UK’s largest not-for-profit social enterprise in the employment and skills sector.
Our Intern will produce evidence-based policy and research work which puts forward the voice of those we exist to support across all the Policy Institute’s activities and areas of work. They will collaborate with, and disseminate this work to Shaw Trust colleagues, politicians, officials, and other stakeholders such as charity partners, academics and think tanks.
Tasks could include; literature reviews, qualitative and quantitative research methods, media and social media monitoring and analysis, political monitoring, organising and attending stakeholder events and meetings, planning and managing projects, writing e.g. policy papers, consultation submissions, briefings, letters, blogs, content for policy reports and media releases.
Long term research tasks for our intern could be researching the life journeys of those we support, with a view to identifying and addressing transition challenges in provision (e.g. between education and employment support - and how to address them) and assessing what good work and support to find employment should look like.
We are looking for; ambitious, enthusiastic, intellectually curious candidates, with a passion for social justice, equality of opportunity and diversity; knowledgeable about politics, public policy and research, and an understanding of how evidence based advocacy can drive positive change for the people Shaw Trust exists to support; excellent verbal and written communication skills, some level of mathematical literacy (comfortable using and interpreting data); strong interpersonal and relationship building skills.
Applicants from groups under-represented in the charity policy sector, particularly people with lived experience of disadvantage, poverty, discrimination and disability, are strongly encouraged.