Background

People and communities around the world have the solutions to social injustice, authoritarianism, and the climate crisis. But repressive governments, corrupt corporations, and armed groups use violence and oppression to try and silence them.

By building resistance and resilience among those challenging unaccountable power, Open Briefing supports a shared vision for a world where communities and ecosystems can thrive.

As a mission-driven nonprofit, we join forces with grassroots activists, community groups, and social movements at risk. Working together, we strengthen their physical safety, digital resilience, and collective wellbeing. As a social impact consultancy, we help high-profile nonprofits and foundations manage risk and care for their teams and partners.

This dual approach allows us to work at every level of civil society, from the grassroots to the global.

We have scaled to meet a 66% surge in demand for our support over the past two years, with our international team now responding to 11 new cases every week. Last year, we:

• Answered 575 calls for assistance across 100 countries.

• Delivered over 6,000 hours of mentoring and accompaniment.

• Trained over 1,000 activists in 112 holistic security workshops.

Whoever we partner with, we start with questions, not answers. Listening before speaking, understanding before acting. Together, we defend those who speak out.

We are expanding our diverse, inspired, and purpose-driven team. Will you join us as one of our new collective care and community wellbeing consultants?

Role description

You will play a key role in helping to build emotional health and wellbeing resilience within collectives, communities, movements, and organisations fighting for a just and equitable world. You will directly support these truth-tellers, changemakers, and risk takers by helping them resist and recover from threats to their wellbeing.

Depending on your skills and experience, your primary responsibilities will include providing the following to at risk entities referred through our pro bono programme or to our nonprofit and foundation clients:

1. Tailored collective care support, coping strategies, and methodologies – building on decolonised and healing centered approaches to psychosocial support.

2. Wellbeing risks assessments and frameworks design for collectives, communities, movements, and organisations.

3. Remote wellbeing and psychosocial support (including psychological first aid after critical incidents).

4. Remote and in-person workshops, webinars, and other training on collective care approaches to wellbeing management.

5. Advisory support on community led wellbeing initiatives and methodologies

Person specification

Essential

• You will be a qualified and experienced wellbeing and psychosocial professional.

• You will have experience working with collectives, communities, and movements at risk especially in the global majority.

• You will have a proven track record of working with activists, nonprofits, and social movements.

• You will usually be available to take on new assignments by agreement within 2-3 working days.

• You will be sensitive to the progressive and rights-based missions and diverse profiles of our clients and other stakeholders.

• You will have professional English capabilities

Desirable

• You may have proficiency in Spanish, Portuguese, or other additional languages.

• You may have experience working with indigenous, land and environmental defenders.

Terms and remuneration

We are a remote-first organisation, and this is a home-working consultancy role. We are looking for professionals who want to become part of our close-knit team and develop a long-term working relationship with us and our clients.

It is a challenging and rewarding role. It requires consultants to work across various countries, civil society actors, and rights and justice issues. You will be appropriately onboarded and continually supported by empowering leaders and highly experienced colleagues.

As part of our duty of care, it is our policy to identify and communicate any risks associated with specific roles and set out how we mitigate them. We have identified the following risks associated with this role:

• Vicarious trauma

• Burnout

• Compassion fatigue

These risks are mitigated through access to individual counselling support, peer support mechanisms, wellbeing check-ins, resources such as resilience plans.

We welcome applications from established consultants with various backgrounds, experiences, and profiles and from anywhere in the world. The hours can vary from month to month, depending on demand and your availability, and the role may require occasional remote meetings outside of regular office hours, depending on your location. Please note that this role is not suitable for those in full-time employment or currently searching for full-time employment.

You will receive £73.50 per hour for counselling and £52.50 per hour for consultancy, ongoing mentoring and training, and a package of wellbeing and mental health support, including an Employee Assistance Programme and Professional Coaching support.

You will need to have or obtain your professional indemnity insurance, including cover for remote work worldwide.

Diversity, equity, and inclusion

Open Briefing values diversity. We are committed to being equitable and inclusive and a place where all can be their authentic selves. Therefore, we encourage applications from all who may meet the person specification, particularly from candidates from historically-marginalised groups that are underrecognised in our team. This currently includes Black, Indigenous, and People of Colour; people from countries in the global majority; and women and non-binary people. Please read our diversity, equity, and inclusion policy for more information.

Open Briefing is neuroinclusive, positive about mental health, and a Disability Confident Employer. We welcome applications from all candidates who meet the person specification. Please let us know in your cover letter how we can be the recruiter and employer you need.

We follow the gender pay gap reporting guidance from the UK government. This reveals that women currently have a higher mean (average) pay than men in our organisation. We have also checked the text of this advert using the Gender Decoder tool.

Safeguarding

Open Briefing is dedicated to upholding the highest safeguarding standards, ensuring a culture of respect and protection for both our internal and external stakeholders. Our approach encompasses preventative measures and a strong response mechanism to any safeguarding concerns, guided by a survivor/victim-centred ethos. We enforce a strict no-tolerance policy towards any violations of safeguarding policies, ensuring that all concerns are addressed promptly and appropriately. Our safeguarding policy is available here.

How to apply

To apply, please submit your application through this form here.

We will conduct interviews on a rolling basis until we recruit suitable candidates. If you are interested in this role, please submit your application as early as possible.