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Job description – Director, RESTORE project

The goal of the RESTORE project is to prevent radicalization to violence in Southwestern Pennsylvania by harnessing the powerful role trusted community leaders – teachers, healthcare professionals, faith leaders, and social workers – can play to change the path of ideologically-motivated members of our communities.

Carefully selected community leaders form a small but powerful RESTORE team and have been trained in evidence-based tools and methodologies that help individuals reject hate and abandon violence and instead anchor their focus on more democratic ways of thinking and acting.

The design of our pilot project is based on the work of Violence Prevention Network in Germany with more than 20 years of experience developing programs that address violent extremism at its root causes. Violence Prevention Network seeks to ensure that people have the tools and resources available to reflect on and overcome patterns of hate and violence. Our motto best summarizes our unique, process-oriented approach to preventing and countering violent extremism: We talk to extremists, not about them. Hence, we are working directly with ideologically motivated individuals to enable them to live a life in which they do not harm themselves or others.

Violence Prevention Network US seeks a full-time consultant as “Director” to manage the full implementation of project RESTORE in Pennsylvania, beginning as soon as possible. This is an excellent opportunity for an entrepreneurial individual, who seeks to hone their leadership skills and gain hands on experience in launching and running an innovative, complex project dedicated to mitigating one of the most pressing social challenges of our time.

Job Responsibilities:

· Build on and continue to develop the training and referral network strategy for the RESTORE project.

· Oversee the full organization of RESTORE training workshops, including logistics, scheduling, participant coordination, and trainer arrangements.

· Coordinate and support the RESTORE team members by organizing team meetings, case conferences, and adapting and implementing a case management system, as needed.

· Act as liaison between board of directors, advisory councils, contracted experts, RESTORE team members, external evaluators and referral network partners.

· Position project RESTORE in key networks through meetings with community leaders and attendance at conferences and other community gatherings.

· Develop and run the project’s ongoing communication efforts including updating website as well as other communications collateral such as social media accounts, brochures, presentations and press releases.

· Manage financial planning, budgets, and oversee bookkeeping for project RESTORE.

Qualifications/Requirements:

· A bachelor’s degree is required, preferably in a relevant field such as social work, business/entrepreneurship, humanities, or social sciences.

· At least 3 years of relevant professional experience, such as project management, community organizing, partnerships, event planning or training.

· Strong interpersonal, relationship-building, communications and conflict management skills.

· A positive, pragmatic, proactive and solution-oriented attitude.

· Reliability, authenticity, integrity, empathy, sensitivity and ability to work across differences and with a very wide variety of stakeholders and vulnerable service populations.

· Knowledge of, or experience with, the ecosystem of relevant institutions and (community) organizations in Southwestern Pennsylvania.

· Ability to prioritize and achieve overall project goals despite handling a high volume of disparate tasks on a daily basis.

· Strong written and oral communication skills in English.

· High level of competence in all typical business software and applications (MS Office Suite, Zoom, Social Media accounts, etc.)

· Experience in financial management is an asset.

· Expertise in or experience with preventing and countering violent extremism (P/CVE) or adjacent, relevant fields such as criminal justice, gang violence, education, youth work, or cults, is an asset.

The application deadline is May 2nd. We look forward to receiving your application materials, which should include cover letter, CV, hourly rate, and the names of two references. Please send your application to Michèle Leaman at michele.leaman@violence-prevention-network.org.

Would you like to learn skills to intervene and support individuals in your community who are vulnerable to violent extremist ideologies but don’t know where to start? Spread the word! We offer skill-building programs to train experienced, practice-oriented people such as social workers, health care providers, educators, psychotherapists, sociologists, and others in helping professions with tools and methods to advise and support individuals to disengage from extremist scenes and ideologies.

Are you a civil or governmental organization, an institution or a individual who works with community members? Or are you simply interested in our work? Do not hesitate to contact us. In order to carry out our work in the best possible way, we depend on a support network that provides us with important contacts for our clients’ practical life issues (e.g. housing, finances, administration, job placement, etc.).

Are you interested in collaborating with us or receiving customized support? We are seeking partners who are interested in supporting our program to prevent violent extremism in the U.S. For more information about partnership opportunities, please contact Judy Korn and Michèle Leaman.