The Charity & The Vision

Scotty’s Little Soldiers is a charity dedicated to supporting military children and young people (0 to 25 years) who have experienced the death of a parent who served in the British Armed Forces.  

Inspired by the experience of Army widow Nikki Scott, following the death of her husband Corporal Lee Scott in Afghanistan in 2009, the charity, which was set up in 2010, provides support and guidance to hundreds of bereaved military children and young people throughout their childhood.  

In 2023 Scotty’s supported 659 young people but aims to be supporting 1,000+ bereaved military children and young people annually by 2030.  Having established a key role within the Armed Forces charitable sector over the past decade, Scotty’s is now embarking on a growth phase to build a charity capable of delivering its 2030 goals. 

View our full list of current UK military charity job vacancies here.

The Head of Family Events and Engagement Role:

SMILES (our Events and engagement programme for our families) is the flagship programme of Scotty’s Little Soldiers.  Research has demonstrated that following the death of a parent, a family’s ability to communicate and support each other can have profound impact on the long-term wellbeing of the child or young person.  Feeling part of a wider community can also help improve the outcomes of a bereaved child.  SMILES aims to give those opportunities to families, by providing respite holidays, holding events for bereaved families to meet each other, and making sure bereaved children never feel forgotten on birthdays and anniversaries.  Scotty’s wants to create opportunities for children to smile again.  As Head of SMILES you will be responsible for overseeing and organising all these important activities.

Responsibilities:

• Project management of the birthday cards/gifts sent to each member (currently we have 672 members and growing), and anniversary cards and Christmas cards/gifts to all members.
• Strategic planning and delivery of the respite breaks offered to families at one of the seven Scotty’s owned lodges (currently 105 family holidays per year). This includes managing the maintenance of lodges, oversight of the booking systems and procedures, and dealing with any arising emergencies during stays, including out of hours.
• Strategic planning and delivery of respite breaks at externally owned locations, including booking externally owned locations
• Event planning of the Winter Festival for families (approx. 200 children and young people attend each year). This includes negotiating contracts, booking venues and equipment, approving all activities, planning and oversight of logistics, and holding vendor relationships.  This is a weekend long event in December.
• Event planning for the Remembrance events in London (November weekend event) This includes liaising with key stakeholders, planning and oversight of logistics, booking travel and accommodation for families, and oversight on the weekend itself. 
• Development of and management of all budgets for the SMILES programme. Including tracking and reporting expenditure across Events, respite breaks and the cards and presents programmes.
• Direct Support of team members (we do not use the term managing because we prefer leadership).
• Development and delivery of new Events for example for our older members (18yr -25yr old).
• Adhoc events and social opportunities for members.

Job Requirements

Role specifications

• Extremely well organised and capable of delivering multiple competing priorities (E). 
• Experience of event management (E). 
• Strong IT skills (E). 
• Attention to detail (E). 
• Excellent communication and customer service skills (E). 
• Thrives in a fast paced environment (E).  
• Experience of data management systems (e.g. Salesforce) (D).  
• Experience of the charitable sector (D) 

We can offer:

• Unlimited holiday
• Flexible working
• Hybrid remote/office working
• A flat structure where everyone has a voice
• Wellbeing first aiders
• Birthday day off
• Free fruit Mondays
• Bike to work scheme

Some evening and weekend work is required. Previous experience of working with bereaved families, or the military is not a requirement.  We recognise that this might suit someone who is looking to take their skills and make a career change into the charity sector.  We think this role could suit someone who has worked as a project or programme coordinator (where there are lots of moving parts that need to be delivered), a great administrator (who is used to working with a lot of people – such as in a university), or as an executive assistant to someone who hosted a lot of events.   If managing the logistics of all the activities that we describe above sounds like something you’d be great at- we want to hear from you.  

Working at Scotty's Little Soldiers

Safeguarding

Safeguarding is of the utmost importance to Scotty’s. All employees may come into contact with our beneficiaries and therefore have a duty of care to safeguard and promote their welfare. There is a legal duty placed upon us to ensure that all adults who work with, or on our behalf, with our children and young people are competent, confident, and safe to do so and all employees will be required to have an enhanced DBS check completed.

BestWork

We operate a BestWork model which allows team members to choose the location that best suits the work required.  All team members are required to spend a minimum of 6 days in East Anglia for team building days, strategy sessions etc.  This role will also require days to attend Council meetings, and events with a strong bereavement element, some of these events may take place at weekend or evenings but are planned well in advance.  Team members are typically expected to be available to work on key events that involve our families and members including Remembrance weekend and our Winter festival weekend.  

We believe the role would benefit from being in our King’s Lynn office at least once a week to support the other SMILES team members but are open to discussing how you would achieve your goals if wanted to work more remotely. 

The Scotty’s Way & our non-negotiables.  

At Scotty’s, our personal performance is only 50% of what success looks like.  Our culture is as important to us as anything else.  If you agree to join the team, you are signing up to The Scotty’s Way. At the heart of The Scotty’s Way are our four core values and four behaviours as created by the whole team.  

Our values are: 

• Families Come First
• Everyone a Supporter, Every Supporter a VIP
• Love What You Do
• Remember, Every Day

Our behaviours are: 

• Speak Up
• Actively Collaborate
• Embrace Change
• Show Respect

How to apply

To apply for this role, please note that we will require the following:

A completed application form – Download our application form here.

A covering letter detailing why you think you’re a good fit for this role.

An up-to-date CV.