About the Role
Help Supporting Humanity strengthen risk management by maintaining risk assessments, risk registers, incident logs and practical controls that keep our volunteers, beneficiaries and services safe.
As a volunteer‑led organisation working in mental health awareness and community support, it is important that our services, events, partnerships and internal processes are safe, well‑governed and properly documented.
What difference will you make?
The Risk Assessment Specialist will help us put practical systems in place so risks are not managed informally or reactively, but are recorded, reviewed and followed up consistently.
Responsibilities
* Keep volunteers, beneficiaries and service users safer.
* Improve the quality and consistency of risk assessments across departments.
* Maintain a clearer and more reliable central risk register.
* Strengthen incident and near‑miss reporting so we can learn from issues and reduce repeat risks.
* Support Trustees and senior leaders with clearer risk information for decision‑making.
* Improve compliance with governance, safeguarding, data protection and operational risk expectations.
* Build a more confident risk culture where volunteers understand how to manage risk without feeling blocked by unnecessary bureaucracy.
* Review and improve risk assessment templates for events, services, fundraising activities, safeguarding, data protection, finance, partnerships and operational risks.
* Maintain the central risk register, ensuring risks are recorded clearly, risk owners identified, mitigation actions tracked and review dates kept up to date.
* Support the incident and near‑miss log, ensuring incidents are recorded promptly and used to support learning and improvement.
* Review risk assessments for new activities before they go live and help teams identify practical, realistic controls.
* Support post‑event or post‑project reviews so that lessons learned are captured and improvements are followed through.
* Help prepare concise risk updates for the Governance Lead, senior leaders and Trustees, including key risks, trends, actions and areas needing decision.
* Support policy and procedure administration, including version control, review dates and storage of documents in SharePoint.
* Prepare short, accessible guidance notes or briefing materials for volunteers and department leads on topics such as event risk, incident reporting, safeguarding risk and data handling.
Qualifications & Experience
We are looking for a practical, organised and detail‑focused volunteer with experience in risk assessment, compliance, governance, health and safety, safeguarding, data protection, operational risk, project risk or a closely related area. The ideal volunteer will have at least three years’ practical or professional experience in one or more of these areas and be confident working with risk assessments, action trackers, registers, reports or compliance documents.
* Organised and systematic, with strong attention to detail.
* Able to maintain accurate records, review dates, action logs and version control.
* Confident reviewing risk assessments and identifying gaps or unclear controls.
* Able to follow up actions in a professional and supportive way.
* Practical and proportionate in their approach to risk.
* Comfortable working with volunteers, department leads and senior stakeholders.
* Able to explain risk clearly and calmly to people who may not have specialist knowledge.
* Collaborative, proactive and aligned with the values of a mental health and community‑focused charity.
* Comfortable using Microsoft 365 tools, especially Excel or Google Sheets for tracking risks and actions, and SharePoint or Teams for document management.
* Strong written communication skills for preparing short guidance notes, risk summaries, reports and briefing documents.
Experience in charity governance, safeguarding, data protection, health and safety, incident reporting or Trustee‑level reporting would be helpful, but it is not essential if the person has strong transferable experience from another sector.
Benefits & Commitment
Hybrid: Main work will be remote, with occasional in‑person meetings in Ilford if needed. The time commitment is expected to be around 3 to 6 hours per week.
For the volunteer, this is an opportunity to make a meaningful contribution to a growing charity while gaining hands‑on experience across risk management, governance, compliance, reporting, incident management and Trustee‑level communication.
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