Youth Theatre Arts Scotland (YTAS) is an in-touch, inspirational and pioneering national youth arts organisation and the post of Next Generation Coordinator offers you an opportunity to join our team to support the development and delivery of ‘Next Generation’, a new programme for 20-30 early career youth theatre practitioners aged 16-25.
Over the course of 12 months, you will coordinate the planning, implementation, monitoring and evaluation of the Next Generation programme. Your role will involve delivering training in youth theatre facilitation and youth theatre practice, co-hosting employment skills development sessions with external partners, mentoring early career practitioners and coordinating work experience opportunities. The Next Generation project has been funded for activity through to summer 2026, so there is an opportunity for extension at the end of this initial contract.
About the Next Generation Project
Our ‘Next Generation’ project has been designed in consultation with early career practitioners and youth theatre assistants from across Scotland. Following a successful trial of some activities, we are now rolling out the full-scale programme which is funded by The National Lottery Community Fund Scotland ‘Young Start’.
It will consist of training, accreditation, work placements and networking for young people and early career practitioners in youth theatre aged 16-25. There will be a focus on supporting young people with fewer access to opportunities due to disadvantage, deprivation, protected characteristics, additional needs or membership of small groups with limited or no capacity to offer in-house development.
The Next Generation programme will run annually from August to July, offering up to 90 hours of support per young person. It will tie in with YTAS’s biannual programme of events, such as our established regional training Hub weekends (in autumn 2024 and spring 2025) and our Interchange skills development weekend which will take place in March 2025. The training schedule and topics for the Next Generation programme have been tested and evaluated by a Youth Steering Group.
Each year participants will have to opportunity to:
• Attend six virtual workshops investigating topics such as:
– Developing your CV
– Interview skills
– Youth theatre facilitation skills
– Youth theatre lesson planning
– Employment rights and practices
– Youth theatre skills exchange and artform knowledge
• Access one-to-one mentoring sessions with the Next Generation Coordinator, Sector Development Manager and volunteer partners from Scotland’s youth theatre sector.
• Participate in the following accredited training courses with YTAS and Youth Scotland.
– Ready for Youth Theatre: an adaptation of Youth Scotland’s existing Ready for Youth Work two-day training for youth arts leaders developing foundational skills to achieve a Dynamic Youth Award at Level 3 SQCF.
– Professional Development Award with YTAS and Youth Scotland: a placement-based SQCF level 6 award for those who have already completed Ready for Youth Theatre.
• Further develop skills through work experience at YTAS’s national festivals and partner festivals such as Light the Blue, Positive Stories for Negative Times, Edinburgh International Festival Youth Take-over and National Theatre Connections.
• Attend YTAS’s existing training events free of charge (Regional Hubs, online exchanges, the National Convention of Youth Theatre and Interchange) with bursaries available to cover travel costs.
• Attend social events and theatre trips in August at the Edinburgh Fringe and December at a partner venue.
• Join the Youth Steering Board to feed back on the programme and identify further opportunities for YTAS to support early career youth theatre practitioners.
KEY INFORMATION
Fixed fee: £4,000
Contract length: 25 days between July 2024 – August 2025
Time commitment: Planning and Evaluation: 10 days
(eight homeworking days + two in-person team days in Edinburgh)
Delivery: 15 days (approx)
(online 10 days approx) + in-person five days approx)
Application deadline: 5pm, Mon 13 May 2024
Interviews: Tue 28 May 2024 (online via Zoom)
Please read the full Job Information Pack for more detailed information on this post.
To apply for this post please complete our Application Form and submit it by email to
recruitment@ytas.org.uk. We are not able to accept CVs.
If you have any questions or would like to speak to us informally about this post, please contact our Sector Development Manager, Emma Barr, at emma@ytas.org.uk or on
07539 010303.
