Business Support

As the Fast Forward business support officer my job consists of helping to manage the office and administrative side of our work. That includes accounting, maintaining our IT systems, invoicing, reporting to funders, researching new projects and writing funding applications. It also means ensuring legal compliance, researching the social and policy context of our work and making sure all our visits and trips go smoothly, as well as making new friends and partners.

The thing I like most about my job is definitely working in such an interesting and stimulating environment. Every day I deal with issues related to teenagers, sexual health, drugs and alcohol. These are some of the most controversial topics of the day, although our role is to look beyond that and work with the real young people behind sensationalist headlines.

Working for a good cause is important for me too – I can’t really understand why someone would want to work for a faceless corporation, with only their take-home pay as an incentive. The only downside is that working providing office support in the charity world is pretty hectic and often requires me to step off into the unknown. I also sometimes wish I had the nerve and the qualifications to work more directly with young people. But I’m fascinated by the experiences of teenagers and our educators working with them, and I love working in an office surrounded by giant plastic cigarettes, the notorious drugs boxes, fancy dress (they are educational aids, apparently) and the beer goggles.