Hedgehogs in Focus Development Officer

The postholder will be responsible for developing a National Heritage Lottery Fund application for PTES’s Hedgehogs in Focus project. Hedgehogs in Focus aims to scale up a nationwide programme using a novel combination of citizen scientists and AI to monitor hedgehogs and co-occurring mammal species. Since 2023, PTES has been working with partners to trial elements of a programme investigating the most effective ways to engage and train citizen scientist volunteers to carry out both field work and online activities, to produce robust population density estimates of mammals in different habitats across England.

The pilot work was a close collaboration between PTES, The British Hedgehog Preservation Society, Nottingham Trent University, Zoological Society of London, London HogWatch, MammalWeb, Agouti and the University of Durham. This work will continue the partnership between these organisations and extend to numerous other partners to ensure engagement from a widespread, diverse range of groups. The project aims to recruit a diverse range of urban and rural communities to discover and engage directly with their local wildlife. It will support much-needed targeted future conservation efforts for hedgehogs and the habitats they rely on, as identified through our recently published National Hedgehog Conservation Strategy (NHCS).

Hedgehogs in Focus aims to:

• Support, train and coordinate a network of volunteer hubs to deploy and manage camera traps at selected sites across England.
• Establish a training programme to enable field volunteers from a range of community groups to set up, calibrate and use camera trap grids for hedgehog monitoring.
• Engage landowners, including schools, universities, community groups, councils, farmers and private residents, to host cameras on their land for mammal monitoring.
• Support, train and coordinate a network of volunteers nationwide to become ‘Spotters’ on the project, i.e. to identify species within camera trap images.
• Create a documented understanding of hedgehog populations across sites and regions in England; vital for directing conservation action.

If successful, there will be an opportunity to apply for a post funded as part of the five-year delivery phase of this project.

The Development Officer will:

• Carry out key governance and planning work
  • Work with a team to review governance arrangements for the project, establish a regular programme of partnership and steering group meetings, and finalise partnership agreements.
  • Work with other team members to identify opportunities to secure delivery phase partnership funding.
• Develop an Volunteer and Landowner Engagement Plan
  • Identify a range of target audiences (volunteers and landowners) including those who are new to nature, inner cities, and from under-served communities.
  • Identify how to attract these key audiences by undertaking community consultations
  • Trial activities to develop effective ways of engaging a diverse group of volunteers.
  • Carry out appropriate development work to build robust relationships with community partners, securing their participation for the delivery phase
• Develop a Communications Plan
  • Design and develop engaging, informative and timely feedback for volunteers and land managers
• Establish robust evaluation protocols
  • With their line manager, develop evaluation mechanisms and gather baseline data to assess the impact and effectiveness of the various activities
• Coordinate the production of the required delivery phase application documents
  • Lead the development of a delivery phase application, including a full range of supporting documents such as an activity plan, interpretation and conservation plans, timetables and budgets, cost breakdowns and cash flows, risk register, partnership agreements and briefs for commissioned works.
  • Create partnership agreements for different community and volunteer groups, ensuring commitment from diverse groups for the delivery phase.

Person Specification

Essential knowledge and experience

• A strong academic background in a conservation related field
• Experience in managing projects with multiple stakeholders to effective delivery of objectives
• Experience and understanding of working with a wide range of volunteers in different capacities
• Experience of biological data management
• Experience using and managing online and Access databases.
• Interest in and passion for ecology and the conservation of British wildlife
• An understanding of or willingness to learn and use the Conservation Standards framework

Essential skills

• Strong organisational skills with ability to work confidently on own initiative but also collaboratively
• Ability to confidently manage multiple tasks in parallel
• Ability to enthuse and motivate volunteers from different backgrounds in different activities
• Ability to work with consistent accuracy and attention to detail
• Excellent interpersonal and communication skills both verbally and in writing
• Excellent numeracy, data manipulation and analytical skills.
• Commitment to PTES’s goals and values

Funding generously provided by The National Heritage Lottery Fund.