News

Seeking new trustees

Join our board to lead collective development of support for male survivors of sexual violence.

The Male Survivors Partnership (MSP) is a membership organisation set up by a group of specialist male agencies in 2017 to support charitable and not for profit agencies who offer therapeutic services to male survivors of sexual violence. We became a registered charity in 2020 and we are now searching for new trustees to work alongside and build upon the work of our founders.

MSP was created to address the absence of formal strategies for the acknowledgement and delivery of services to male survivors – by providing information and support to statutory and charitable organisations working with male victims/survivors of sexual abuse, rape and sexual exploitation – and to provide male survivors with a single point of reference to national and local support services.
In just three years we have grown to a network of 45 member organisations and our national quality standards are improving and increasing access to services for men and boys. Next, our trustee board’s business plan will focus on four key themes—support, engage, insight, inform—in work with government and others in the sexual violence support sector to deliver the change needed to generate equitable, effective access for male survivors nationwide. We look forward to hearing from people interested in joining us as leaders of our strategy, governance, research and communications.

What you could bring to our board

We hope to recruit trustees with demonstrable commitment to male survivors and the sexual violence victims/survivors support sector, and prepared to accept the responsibilities of a charity volunteer and trustee. We would like to hear from people with an understanding of the challenges associated with improving support for male survivors but equally we would welcome people with management and leadership skills from other sectors that might aid our governance and development. As a high priority we think it’s important that the board reflects the people and organisations we would like to help, so it would be great to receive applications from people working in our member organisations and from male survivors of sexual violence.

Desirable (but non-essential) characteristics we are looking out for include:

>> Record of leadership and innovation that challenges and overcomes barriers to inclusion

>> Ability to understand and represent the lived experience of men/boys facing additional systemic barriers to understanding engagement, including racism, ageism, ableism & transphobia.

>> Experience of engagement with commissioners and policy makers around related areas of work

>> Research interest and experience in evidence-based improvements to national social policy and practice

>> Experience in charity leadership and governance, especially relevant to development of a new national charity/membership organisation

>> History of improving opportunities for people with lived experience of relevant issues to participate in organisational leadership and development.

Founding values
If you are interested in a trustee role with MSP please read our terms of reference document, downloadable at malesurvivor.co.uk/membership. It’s evidence of the values that we are committed to, including:

>> Male survivors’ right to high quality support

>> Evidence-based policy and practice

>> Transparent, collaborative working in the spirit of partnership

>> Collective advocacy on issues affecting male survivors

>> Opposition to discrimination including on gender identity, sexual orientation and imposed standards of male identity

>> Support to development of sexual violence support services for women and girls

How the MSP board works

Current practice is to meet as a board once a month for a video call of up to two hours. We will review this practice with the newly recruited trustees to ensure meeting timing and frequency align with our needs and preferences.

The trustees are supported by our employed Head of Operations.

Our meeting agendas cover a wide range of concerns, from initiatives to develop the national conversation on sexual violence suffered by men and boys, to funding and development of a new national membership organisation.

As a trustee you will have responsibilities defined in law. All applicants will be asked to confirm that they have read UK government guidance at gov.uk/guidance/charity-trustee-whats-involved and also our terms of reference and articles of association.

Apply by January 11th in this round of recruitment

To express your interest in joining us as a trustee, please send a one-page and CV of no more than two pages to Head of Operations Jonny Gutteridge at jonny@malesurvivor.co.uk. If your application reaches us by January 11th we will have time to assess it in time for a board meeting in late January. You are welcome to email Jonny for a discussion ahead of formally expressing interest.

More info

We are a charity registered in England and Wales, charity number 1191026, and company limited by guarantee, company number 12215676 . Our About Us page carries information about our trustees and staff and Agencies Working With Male Survivors will tell you more about the services in our network.
Our social media channels will give you a flavour of current activity. You will find them at twitter.com/MaleSurvivorUK, facebook.com/MaleSurvivorsPartnership, instagram.com/malesurvivorspartnership and linkedin.com/company/male-survivors-partnership. You will also find some video content on YouTube.

Key roles of MSP trustees

Ours is a developing organisation with a unique role in the national response to sexual violence. As a trustee you may be asked to volunteer to:

>> Support our strategy development , member organisation engagement and risk management

>> Represent the views of our member organisations in government policy development and information-sharing calls

>> Take a role as an officer of the company: chair, deputy chair or treasurer

>> Lead a working group on a particular issues—anything from survivor voice to sustainability

>> Act as an ambassador in media work or recruitment of new member organisations

We look forward to hearing from people interested in joining us. Thanks for your interest.