Create Sheffield is looking for a Freelancer - Creative Youth Work Project
Do you have good connections with people and organisations who work in Sheffield’s Youth Work sector? Would you like to help them make better connections with creative practitioners and cultural organisations in the city? If so, we have an opportunity for you.
Closing date for applications is 10am Tuesday 19 May 2026. Read on for the full brief, or download it here.
The Role
We are looking for a well-connected freelancer to help us map the creative and cultural activity happening in youth work settings across Sheffield, and to help build the relationships that will lead to collaborations and strengthened arts and cultural provision for children and young people. This means connecting with youth workers, creative practitioners and organisations, finding out what they do, and sharing that information with the Create Sheffield team.
The culmination of this work will be an event in autumn 2026, in partnership with Sheffield Youth Alliance, where our new and existing contacts, connections and partners will come together to start to make their own connections. The work you do in finding, engaging and connecting with people across Sheffield is fundamental to the success of the event and the future usefulness of the network. It will also feed directly into our upcoming ‘Youth Proofing Sheffield Culture’ project (see below).
This role will be supported and managed by Laura Travis, Create Sheffield Manager, and the work needs to happen between June to September 2026.
Your responsibilities:
Represent the Create Sheffield network
Contact and connect with youth work settings across Sheffield via Sheffield Youth Alliance and other channels
Make contact and connections with individual creative practitioners, youth workers and people who work with young people but may not see themselves as a youth worker
Create and maintain a spreadsheet of the different creative and cultural activities on offer in Sheffield
Share contacts and leads with the Create Sheffield team
Visit youth work settings, talk to young people and see the creative and cultural work they are doing
What you’ll bring:
Exceptional people skills and ability to form effective relationships
Existing contacts in youth work settings across Sheffield
A proactive and open approach to making new contacts
A generous nature in terms of sharing contacts and leads
Good organisational skills to track and record contacts
A positive view of the arts, creativity and cultural activities, and how these can be beneficial to young people
Creativity and enthusiasm for the role
A focussed approach and an ability to deliver results
The ability to work independently and on own initiative as well as working with others
The time and capacity to work flexibly, including evenings and weekends, to visit youth work settings and attend activities
Fee
This role is offered on a freelance basis and there is a budget of £1000 to cover the work.
There will be a separate budget for travel. This role will be based in Sheffield and will require a fair amount of travel across the city. Mileage (or public transport costs) will be paid for travel within the city, but you will be expected to be based either in the city or be able to easily travel to the city.
Terms and Conditions
Freelancers are required to obtain and maintain personal Public Liability Insurance and an up-to-date DBS check. You will be responsible for your own tax deductions and National Insurance contributions.
For more information
If you have any questions or for an informal chat about the role, please contact laura@createsheffield.co.uk.For more information on Create Sheffield, visit our website.
How to apply
Please submit your CV with a one page covering letter which outlines how you meet the requirements as well as the details of two references. Please include your daily rate and a timeframe of how you plan to use your time with your application.
Applications should be sent to laura@createsheffield.co.uk
Closing date for applications is 10am Tuesday 19 May 2026. Interviews will take place in person on Thursday 21 May at Learn Sheffield’s office in Albion House, Sheffield.
Please let us know with your application if you are unable to attend an interview in person in Sheffield on the above date.
Context
About Create Sheffield
Create Sheffield holds a unique position in connecting the city’s education, cultural, arts and youth sectors. Our core aim is to increase, improve and equalise cultural opportunities for children and young people, and our network is made up of partner organisations and individuals who share this mission. Our partners come from a wide range of settings and backgrounds, but all have an enthusiasm for how culture and creativity can enhance learning and lives.
By running events, facilitating projects, sharing knowledge, brokering introductions and providing support, we facilitate a trusted network that includes arts and cultural organisations, freelance artists, teachers and schools, community and strategic partners. We are a small organisation with a big reach: by bringing people together through our network, we allow them to do more together.
Youth Proofing Sheffield Culture
We are currently fundraising to establish a city-wide voice for young people to directly influence the future of culture. Drawing on research and best practice, ‘Youth Proofing’ will train young peer researchers to work with underrepresented voices and collaborate with creative practitioners and youth workers to strengthen provision. It will also challenge the sector to ensure they’re ready to listen and act. Now is the right time for this work as new cultural, national and local youth strategies provide collective momentum. Growing and strengthening our network to include more organisations and initiatives from Sheffield’s youth sector is key preparation for this work of ‘Youth Proofing’.
Growing and strengthening the Network
Sheffield's arts, cultural and youth sectors have much to offer each other - and often share similar aims in nurturing creativity in young people across Sheffield - but connections between them are not always strong. We have secured funding from Sheffield City Council to help address this. The funds will go towards identifying, engaging and consolidating connections between the youth work sector and our culture/creative partners, something we know there is demand for.
We know there is lots of great creative youth work happening across Sheffield — in community settings, faith settings and uniformed groups — but we think there is more we don't yet know about. Some youth work has a central creative focus, like the programmes run by TRACKS, Site Gallery and RivelinCo. In other settings, creative activity may be just one strand of a wider programme. We want to find out more about all of it – and that’s where you come in!
