Assistant Programme Manager - Young People & Suicide Prevention

We’re recruiting: Assistant Programme Manager – Young People & Suicide Prevention

£28,000–£30,000 | Full-time | London EC1R 4RE | In-person

Body & Soul is a charity dedicated to ending suicide, with love .

For more than 30 years, we have worked alongside people and communities most at risk of suicide, including racialised communities, LGBTQI+ communities and neurodivergent people.

Our therapeutic community model brings together a broad range of therapeutic approaches, trauma-informed practice and the power of connection and belonging. Membership is not time-limited : people don’t complete a therapeutic intervention and become “discharged” from the relationships and community around them.

We’re looking for an Assistant Programme Manager to join our frontline You Are Not Alone (YANA) team, with particular responsibility for our under-20 members.

This is a relational, hands-on role with three key areas of focus:

• Frontline support: being the main day-to-day point of contact for young people in YANA — building trusted relationships, maintaining engagement, monitoring wellbeing and working alongside our therapeutic team.

• Ongoing community: supporting graduate members to remain connected to a trusted, relational support network, develop purpose and access therapeutic programmes, courses and opportunities as their lives and needs change.

• Research: being part of a project team striving to understand how we break the cycle of complex mental health challenges — maintaining relationships with members over time and helping us capture what supports sustained change.

We’re looking for someone with experience of working directly with young people experiencing emotional distress, complex mental-health challenges and/or suicidal thoughts.

You’ll need strong safeguarding practice, emotional maturity and sound judgement, alongside the ability to build warm, trusted relationships while maintaining safe professional boundaries. A commitment to equity is fundamental to how we work.

Knowledge of approaches such as DBT would be valuable, but isn’t essential.

Hours: Monday–Friday, including Thursday evening programme delivery

Location: Body & Soul, London EC1R 4RE — in person

If you want to work at the intersection of therapeutic practice, community and research , helping create the foundations from which young people can build lives worth living, we’d love to hear from you.

How to apply

Please send your CV and a cover letter explaining your interest in the role and the experience you would bring to .

Closing date: 4 th October 

Further Information

The Role

This is a hands-on, relational role at the heart of our therapeutic community.

You will be a consistent and trusted point of contact for young people participating in YANA, supporting their engagement and wellbeing and working closely with therapeutic and programme colleagues throughout their journey.

The role extends beyond periods of intensive therapeutic intervention. You will maintain relationships with graduate members as they continue within the Body & Soul community, helping sustain connection, purpose and access to therapeutic and developmental opportunities.

The role therefore has three closely connected areas of focus.

Supporting Under-20 Members

You will be a consistent and approachable point of contact for under-20 members, developing trusted relationships and helping young people remain engaged with the programme and wider therapeutic community.

· Manage day-to-day communication and engagement with under-20 YANA members.

· Build trusted, consistent relationships while maintaining safe and appropriate professional boundaries.

· Monitor members’ engagement, wellbeing and progress, identifying changes or concerns and responding appropriately.

· Conduct and contribute to initial assessments and individual support planning alongside senior and therapeutic colleagues.

· Co-facilitate therapeutic and support groups where appropriate.

· Support the planning and delivery of programme sessions, activities and events, including regular Thursday evening programmes.

· Identify and respond appropriately to safeguarding concerns, escalating clinical or risk concerns when required.

· Help members navigate appropriate internal programmes and external specialist support.

· Work collaboratively with families, professionals and other agencies where appropriate.

Relational Support

At Body & Soul, completing a period of intensive therapeutic work does not mean being discharged from the community. Our graduate members remain members.

You will:

· Maintain regular, meaningful contact with graduate members.

· Support continued engagement with the Body & Soul community.

· Help members identify opportunities for connection, participation and purpose.

· Facilitate access to ongoing therapeutic programmes, groups, courses and other opportunities.

· Support members to build on their strengths, relationships, interests and aspirations.

· Recognise changes in engagement or wellbeing and respond appropriately.

· Help create pathways through which graduate members can participate in and contribute to the wider community.

· Ensure that young people experience continuity of relationship as they move between different forms and intensities of support.

The Research Role

Body & Soul is committed not only to delivering effective therapeutic support but to understanding what enables positive change to be sustained over time.

This is not research conducted at a distance. The trusted relationships we maintain with members over time are central to our ability to understand their longer-term journeys.

· Participate actively as a member of the research project team.

· Support ongoing participant engagement and follow-up.

· Contribute to the collection and maintenance of high-quality longitudinal, outcome and monitoring data.

· Facilitate member feedback and participation in research and service development..

· Help ensure that the experiences and perspectives of members remain central to the research.

Wider Responsibilities

· Contribute to monitoring, evaluation and continuous improvement of the programme.

· Participate actively in supervision, reflective practice and team development.

· Build constructive relationships with families, professionals, referral partners and external agencies.

· Contribute to outreach and the development of effective referral pathways.

· Represent Body & Soul appropriately at relevant external meetings and events.

Person Specification

Experience & Skills - Essential

· Experience of direct work with young people experiencing emotional distress, complex mental health challenges and/or suicidal thoughts.

· Strong relational skills and the ability to build trust with young people while maintaining safe professional boundaries.

· Experience of supporting people whose needs or circumstances may be complex or change over time.

· The ability to plan, prioritise and manage a varied workload while providing reliable and consistent follow-up.

· The ability to work collaboratively within a multidisciplinary team while taking responsibility and initiative within their own role.

· The ability to work thoughtfully with monitoring, evaluation and outcome information.

· A clear commitment to equity and an understanding of how structural inequalities, discrimination and unequal experiences of services can affect mental health, access to support and outcomes.

Knowledge & Understanding

· A good understanding of young people’s mental health and the experiences of young people living with complex emotional distress.

· An understanding of trauma-informed practice.

· Awareness of child and adolescent development, attachment and the impact of adverse experiences.

· Knowledge of safeguarding practice and responsibilities when working with children and young people.

· An understanding of the importance of relational, strengths-based approaches to support.

· An understanding of the importance of consistency, connection and belonging in supporting longer-term change.

Particularly Valuable

We would particularly welcome experience or knowledge of one or more of the following:

· Suicide prevention and/or supporting people who self-harm.

· DBT or DBT-informed practice.

· Other evidence-based therapeutic approaches.

· Therapeutic communities and relational models of support.

· Community-building, youth participation or strengths-based practice.

· Longitudinal research, participant engagement, monitoring and evaluation or outcome measurement.

· Working alongside racialised, LGBTQI+ and/or neurodivergent young people and communities.

Qualities We Value

Relational – You understand the importance of consistent, trusted relationships and can build them while maintaining clear professional boundaries.

Measured – You can remain calm, thoughtful and effective when somebody is distressed or a situation is uncertain or pressured.

Curious – You want to understand the person in front of you, their experiences and what matters to them rather than making assumptions.

Consistent and reliable – You understand that showing up, following through and doing what you say you will do matter enormously in relational work.

Reflective – You can think critically about your own practice, use supervision well, learn from others and remain open to challenge.

Emotionally grounded – You can work with distress, uncertainty and complexity while recognising your own limits and making appropriate use of colleagues and supervision.

Adaptable – You can respond flexibly to changing circumstances and to the different needs of individual members.

Equity-focused – You recognise that people do not begin from the same place or encounter services in the same way. You are attentive to power, structural inequality and barriers to support and committed to equitable practice.

Hopeful – You can hold a belief in each young person’s capacity for change, including at times when they may struggle to see that possibility themselves.