Project Manager - Leadership & Lived Experience Programmes

This is a leadership role within User Voice’s Midlands team, managing our new flagship Leadership Academy, in partnership with Unlock, and our Lived Experience insights programme with NHS England (East & West Midlands).

The Leadership Academy is designed to create credible, recognised leadership pathways for people in prison and on release, and aims to develop resilient, confident, socially aware, and practically skilled leaders who can positively influence their environments, progress into employment, and contribute to systemic change. 

The Academy will run its first pilot at Peterborough Prison.

Our two NHS England programmes embed lived-experience insights directly into Health and Justice commissioning, procurement, and service evaluation. and supports a Lived Experience Panel who provide structured input to ensure services are informed by real experiences across the care pathway

The Project Manager will lead the planning, delivery, and evaluation of these initiatives, ensuring they meet strategic objectives and deliver meaningful impact for participants and stakeholders.

This role is ideal for someone experienced in leading complex projects and managing teams and partnerships.

Terms & Conditions 

• Full-time
• Permanent
• Up to £40K dependant on experience
• Bank holidays plus 25 days holiday pro-rata.
• Probationary period: Six months
• You must be off community order / prison license

Key Responsibilities

Health & Justice

• Take overall responsibility for the successful delivery of the East & West Midlands NHS project, including planning, coordination, stakeholder engagement, and reporting. Ensure project outcomes align with organisational objectives and contractual requirements.
   
• Provide direct line management to Lived Experience Consultants working on the NHS projects, including supervision, support, performance monitoring, and development.Lead the delivery of activity across East & West Midlands prisons, ensuring safe, high quality engagement.
• Ensure activity is independent, trauma informed, and adheres to safeguarding, vetting, governance, and NHS information governance requirements.
• Produce impact reports, summary reports, and support commissioners with S13Q duties.

Leadership Academy

Programme Leadership and Delivery

• Lead the planning, implementation and day-to-day management of the Leadership Academy pilot across prison, and community settings in partnership with Unlock.
• Develop and maintain a detailed project plan, ensuring delivery milestones, risks, budgets and outputs are monitored and achieved.

Curriculum Development and Co-production

• Lead the co-production and iteration of the Academy curriculum with people with lived experience, Prison Councils and delivery partners.
• Embed trauma-informed, strengths-based and inclusive approaches throughout all learning materials and activities.

Partnership and Stakeholder Management

• Build and maintain effective relationships with prison governors, prison staff, psychology teams, reducing reoffending teams and external partners.
• Act as the key liaison between User Voice, Unlock and prison establishments.

Participant Recruitment and Engagement

• Develop and oversee recruitment and selection processes, ensuring participants are identified based on need, motivation and readiness to engage.
• Work with prison staff and Prison Councils to promote the programme and encourage diverse participation.
• Support participants to remain engaged throughout the programme and into post-release opportunities.

Accreditation and Evaluation

• Coordinate accreditation processes and ensure Academy content meets required standards.

• Work closely with the independent Process Evaluation

Person Specification

Essential

• Personal lived experience of the criminal justice system.

• Must not be on any form of prison license or community sentence

• Experience working in Justice or aligned support services

• Experience of delivering training programmes

• Strong experience managing complex projects, partnerships, and multi-agency work.

• Experience facilitating engagement with marginalised people, including vulnerable or high risk groups.
• Experience managing staff and/or volunteers

• Strong communication and relationship building skills across NHS, prison, and community partners.
• Ability to analyse qualitative and quantitative data and produce high quality insight/impact reports.
• Strong understanding of safeguarding, risk management, information governance, and trauma awareness approaches.
• Ability to manage competing priorities across multiple systems (NHS, prisons, community services).

Desirable

• Knowledge of commissioning cycles, co-production methods, and lived experience workforce development.
• Knowledge of NHS governance, S13Q duties, PPV frameworks, and quality assurance processes.
• Existing standard plus prison vetting