What could you bring as an experienced Chair to a new charity dedicated to supporting children’s mental health and providing the vital building blocks to a better future?
About us
The Purple Elephant Project began life in 2019 and has already supported over 500 children. We provide short and long-term therapeutic support to children and young people experiencing mental health distress. Using approaches such as Play Therapy, Art Therapy, Theraplay, group work, and other specialised interventions, we work to transform the lives of children affected by difficult life experiences, enabling them to overcome mental health challenges and trauma and work towards achieving brighter futures. Many of our interventions are long-term and can offer children with more complex needs the level of support they require to overcome significant trauma. We believe every child should be able to access therapeutic support when they need to, and we continue to work tirelessly to make this achievable for as many children as possible.
The role
We’re keen to recruit a Chair who is passionate about our work and is willing and able to commit time and energy for the longer term. We are seeking an experienced, knowledgeable and motivated individual to help steer The Purple Elephant Project through a time of exciting opportunity and development this year and beyond. Our new Chair of the Board will be someone able to bring strategic leadership, ensuring that we consolidate all that we have achieved so far, in order to effectively develop our services to meet the huge need that exists. We are seeking an individual with significant charity governance experience, ideally having already been a charity Chair, capable of leading long-term strategic development and driving financial growth and sustainability.
Key accountabilities
- Provide strategic leadership to The Purple Elephant Project with the Board and ensure that the organisation operates within its charitable objectives
- Ensure the charity develops and maintains a profile that reflects its ambitions and objectives, and its achievements
- Ensure the Board has sufficient members with a diversity of skills and experience appropriate to the governance of the charity
- Advocate for, represent and act as a spokesperson for the charity
- With the CEO and her team and the Board, review major risks and opportunities and verify that appropriate measures are in place to mitigate the risks and take advantage of opportunities
- Ensure all trustees comply with their duties and responsibilities for effective charitable governance and play an active role on the Board
- Ensure that the Board fulfils its duties to ensure the sound financial health of the charity, with systems in place to ensure financial accountability.
What you will bring
Essential
- A commitment to the mission, values, and ethos of the charity
- Charity governance and strategic experience at a senior organisational level
- Experience of managing Board level discussions to rounded decisions and agreement for action
- Ability to lead through facilitating, enabling, and consensus-building
- Ability to challenge constructively and supportively
- Ability to operate strategically, noticing trends, opportunities, and risks
- High level of interpersonal skills including tact, diplomacy and enabling contributions from all
- Experience and success in continually improving governance and developing Board performance
- Experience of over-seeing organisational change.
What you will get
Sitting on a Board can be an absorbing experience, not least because it allows you to adapt and apply your skills, knowledge and experience in an entirely new setting. Even for people with previous experience of leading a board, the Chair role can continue to provide opportunities to learn new skills. Understanding how to adapt your professional knowledge to useful and impactful ends is a good reminder of your own versatility, giving you confidence in your existing abilities whilst challenging you to push the boundaries of your expertise.
The closing date for applications is Monday 6 November and longlisting interviews, held by Eastside People, will take place the following week. Interviews with The Purple Elephant Project for shortlisted candidates will be held the week beginning 20 November.
If you would like a call to discuss the role in more detail, please email Lucinda Shaw, [email protected] to arrange a convenient time. Having a call of this kind will not influence the success or otherwise of your application.
Contact us if you have any questions about the role:
We want you to have every opportunity to demonstrate your skills, ability, and potential; please contact us if you require any assistance or adjustment so that we can help with making the application process work for you.
We are fully committed to equality of opportunity and diversity to ensure that we reflect the full breadth of the people we aim to support. We work within an increasingly diverse area, and it is important that the Board is representative of the communities that we serve. We would particularly welcome applications from people with a disability and from an ethnic minority background who are currently under-represented on the Board and warmly welcome applications from all suitably qualified candidates.
