JOB DESCRIPTION
Senior Evidence Officer x 2
Purpose: To oversee the day-to-day work on the Foundations Guidebook, Practice Guides and other evidence synthesis work.
Responsible to: Head of Evidence Synthesis
Responsible for: Evaluation and Evidence Officers
Number of hours: 35 hours/flexible/hybrid/remote working will be considered
Length of contract: x1 fixed term contract until March 2027 with possibility of extension and x1 fixed term contract, 12 months (maternity cover)
Salary: £53,300 plus generous benefits
The organisation
Foundations strives to be a great place to work, where everyone is high performing and where together we achieve impact that makes a real difference for vulnerable children and families. We focus on generating and championing high quality evidence, working directly with government and local leaders to provide practical solutions and encourage change. We're an organisation with ambitious aims and our people are essential to our success.
The role
The Senior Evidence Officer leads the day-to-day delivery of work to develop and maintain the Foundations Toolkit – which consists of Practice Guides and a Guidebook of evidence-based interventions. This includes setting research questions for new evidence synthesis work, commissioning and quality assuring partners to produce new evidence synthesis (including systematic reviews), overseeing programme assessment, translating synthesis findings for practice and policy, and producing evidence-based guidelines and advice for local and national stakeholders.
The Senior Evidence Officer will also support the Head of Evidence Synthesis to develop new standards, tools and guidance to support this portfolio of work.
Key tasks
Foundations Guidebook
The postholder will be responsible for supporting the Head of Evidence Synthesis and other Senior Evidence Officers to maintain and develop the Foundations Guidebook. This could involve:
- Supporting the development of tools and evidence standards to assess the strength of evidence underpinning the individual interventions and practices appearing on the Guidebook
- Assisting with reviewing historical content to refresh and upload with new content
- Commissioning new evidence synthesis projects
- Leading the work programme to populate the Guidebook. This will include identifying interventions and activities for potential inclusion, convening a panel to assess the evidence, and gathering information from providers for inclusion on the Guidebook.
Practice Guides
- Scoping work via evidence scoping reviews to inform new Practice Guides
- Commissioning and overseeing robust synthesis studies, primarily mixed-method systematic reviews
- Providing input into the recommendations within new Practice Guides
- Co-authoring evidence-based Practice Guides for local and national stakeholders
- Supporting with dissemination and implementation activities on Practice Guides.
Synthesis
- Conducting and overseeing evidence synthesis, both qualitative and quantitative, drawing on systematic review methods on a range of topics and questions
- Supporting the commissioning of evidence synthesis, by setting appropriate research questions, setting clear standards and methodological requirements, selecting partners and quality assuring outputs
- Quality assuring meta-analytical analyses
- Analysing and interpreting complex systematic/meta-analytic findings so that they are meaningful and accessible to Foundations' policy and practice audiences
- Supporting the Head of Evidence Synthesis with rapid evidence synthesis support for policy stakeholders internally and externally
- Supporting methodological thinking and development of our approach to economic appraisal and value for money analyses, using outputs from evidence synthesis
- Supporting team and supplier capabilities and appropriate use of AI within evidence synthesis tasks and projects.
Scoping for new research (topic and methods)
- Assisting with scoping work for all new projects in the wider evidence and programmes teams, identifying existing research and practice in the relevant area – this will aid the design and targeting of Foundations' grant funding
- The postholder will work closely with the Head of Evidence Synthesis, who will set evolving research questions, depending on what evidence and iterative search process identifies.
Team development
- Supporting the organisation, as a member of the Evidence Team, to develop a strong knowledge of evidence synthesis and evaluation methods
- Line managing staff to ensure they are fully supported and motivated, and effectively guiding and managing them while providing autonomy and well-being and according to our organisational and EDIE (equality, diversity, inclusion and equity) values.
Other
- Providing support on any other project development and delivery, as directed by the Head of Evidence Synthesis.
Person specification (see ToRs in link)
Additional information
Data protection
If staff have contact with computerised data systems, staff are required to process and/or use information held on a computer in a fair and lawful way. Staff are also required to hold data only for the specific registered purpose and not to use or disclose it in any way incompatible with such purpose.
Safeguarding and equality, diversity, inclusion and equity (EDIE)
Foundations is committed to safeguarding and promoting the welfare of children and vulnerable adults and expects all staff to share this commitment. Foundations is committed to building a diverse, equitable and truly inclusive organisation. All posts (and postholders) will seek to ensure diversity and inclusion, while opposing all forms of unlawful and unfair discrimination on the grounds of age, disability, gender identity, marriage and civil partnership, pregnancy and maternity, race, nationality, ethnic or national origin, religion or belief, sex and sexual orientation, or social and economic background.
FOUNDATIONS' CULTURE CODE
Foundations is an impact driven organisation, where everything we do is to improve outcomes for vulnerable children and families.
Our mission is to generate and champion actionable evidence that improves services that support family relationships, because we believe every child should have the foundational relationships they need to thrive in life.
The culture at Foundations is what makes this possible: our shared values, the social purpose and high impact of our work, the opportunity to work with excellent colleagues, the ability to develop skills and experience, and our competitive salaries. We want Foundations to be the place you can do the best work of your life.
Accountability, autonomy and support
People thrive when they are working with great people, when everyone is working together and playing their part. At Foundations, staff have accountability, autonomy, and support. By harnessing the power, ideas, and energy of all of us we are empowered and accountable for delivering excellent work. We support each other to be the best we can be, through strong and effective line management, and through the wider culture at Foundations.
High performance
Foundations has an expectation that everyone is high performing, so we can improve the lives of vulnerable children and families. We achieve this by investing in excellent line managers and having a strong feedback culture that we train everyone in. We also use Objectives and Keys Results (OKRs) to keep us on track. OKRs are set quarterly at an organisation, team and individual level and are a collaborative goal-setting tool used to set challenging, ambitious goals with measurable results. Our approach means that we dedicate organisational energy where it's needed and are flexible and responsive to changing priorities.
Pay
As our expectations are higher than some other employers, we pay in the upper quartile for our sector. Fairness and transparency are at the heart of our pay framework, and we believe that everyone in the same role should be paid the same salary. This reduces pay inequalities that typically emerge in performance-related pay models. Our pay framework is different:
- Everyone at Foundations is highly paid for their role
- Pay is not linked to performance, as high performance is expected
- We don't negotiate on salaries, including when we are recruiting
- Our pay framework is simple, fair and equitable
- Pay progression happens regularly – through cost-of-living increases and regular benchmarking
- Everyone is paid London salaries, regardless of where they live.
Values and behaviours
People join Foundations because they care about the work we do. Our multi-skilled team is brought together by a shared values and the behaviours we expect to see.
We are transparent in our decisions and actions. We are always clear about the work we're doing, the quality we expect and the messages we share with our partners. We keep our promises, and we won't shy away from difficult conversations.
We are rigorous in everything we do, using our expertise and critical thinking to produce high-quality work so that we are a trusted voice. We use our time and resources to do things properly and to a high standard.
We are collaborative in our work and our relationships with partners, funders, colleagues and the families and children we serve. From working with other funders to make substantial investments in evidence generation, to giving power to people who have lived experience of the services we're trying to improve, our partnerships make an enormous difference to the impact of our work.
We champion equality, diversity, inclusion and equity. We know that the children and families we serve are affected by disadvantage and discrimination that directly reduces their chances of living in a loving and stable family environment. Understanding how services and interventions work for everyone, and actively seeking out what works for specific groups of people, helps us achieve our mission and vision. And we want a staff team that reflects the diversity of our community, and this means we work hard to be inclusive and accessible, and we are striving to be an anti-racist organisation.
We make an impact. We start all our work by questioning whether it will have an impact and we continually reflect on whether this bears out. Even when it's difficult to do so, we will change course if it means our work will be more impactful.
We are ambitious and optimistic about the change Foundations will make to improve family relationships for vulnerable children.
STAFF BENEFITS (See ToRs in Link)
HOW TO APPLY
We look forward to receiving your application.
Applications close at 23:59 on Sunday 8 June 2025.
Please apply through the following link: NFP People - Applying for - Senior Evidence Officer
Interviews will be held online in the week commencing 16 June 2025.
If you could like an informal conversation whilst applications are open, please contact hiring manager Jonathon.blackburn@foundations.org.uk.
This position was originally posted by Foundations and has been curated by PurposePhil Career. To apply, please visit the original listing on the "apply" link below. We are not affiliated with the employer organization of this job ad or consultancy, and provide this curated listing as a service to our users.
