Risk Assessment Specialist

What will you be doing?

upporting Humanity is a volunteer-led charity providing mental health awareness, support and community initiatives in East London and beyond.

We are looking for a Risk Assessment Specialist to support our Governance, Risk and Compliance function. This role will help us build and maintain a practical risk management approach that is clear, proportionate and suitable for a growing charity.

The volunteer will work closely with the Governance Lead to support key risk management activities, including:

• Reviewing and improving risk assessment templates for events, services, fundraising activities, safeguarding, data protection, finance, partnerships and operational risks.
• Maintaining the central risk register, making sure risks are recorded clearly, risk owners are identified, mitigation actions are tracked, and review dates are kept up to date.
• Supporting the incident and near-miss log, helping ensure incidents are recorded promptly and used to support learning and improvement.
• Reviewing risk assessments for new activities before they go live and helping teams identify practical, realistic controls.
• Supporting post-event or post-project reviews so that lessons learned are captured and improvements are followed through.
• Helping prepare concise risk updates for the Governance Lead, senior leaders and Trustees, including key risks, trends, actions and areas needing decision.
• Supporting policy and procedure administration, including version control, review dates and storage of documents in SharePoint.
• Preparing short, accessible guidance notes or briefing materials for volunteers and department leads on topics such as event risk, incident reporting, safeguarding risk and data handling.

This role would suit someone with experience in risk assessment, governance, compliance, health and safety, safeguarding, data protection, operational risk or project risk. The person should be organised, practical, comfortable working with documents and action trackers, and able to explain risk in plain English to non-specialist volunteers.

The time commitment is expected to be around 3 to 6 hours per week, mainly remote, with occasional in-person meetings in Ilford if needed. 

What are we looking for?

We are looking for a practical, organised and detail-focused volunteer with experience in risk assessment, compliance, governance, health and safety, safeguarding, data protection, operational risk, project risk or a closely related area.

The ideal volunteer will have at least three years’ practical or professional experience in one or more of these areas and be confident working with risk assessments, action trackers, registers, reports or compliance documents.

They should be able to take complex risk information and turn it into clear, proportionate and useful guidance for non-specialist volunteers. 

The volunteer should be comfortable using Microsoft 365 tools, particularly Excel or Google Sheets for tracking risks and actions, and SharePoint or Teams for document management. Strong written communication is important, as the role may involve preparing short guidance notes, risk summaries, reports and briefing documents.

We are looking for someone who is:

• Organised and systematic, with strong attention to detail.
• Able to maintain accurate records, review dates, action logs and version control.
• Confident reviewing risk assessments and identifying gaps or unclear controls.
• Able to follow up actions in a professional and supportive way.
• Practical and proportionate in their approach to risk.
• Comfortable working with volunteers, department leads and senior stakeholders.
• Able to explain risk clearly and calmly to people who may not have specialist knowledge.
• Collaborative, proactive and aligned with the values of a mental health and community-focused charity.

Experience in charity governance, safeguarding, data protection, health and safety, incident reporting or Trustee-level reporting would be helpful, but it is not essential if the person has strong transferable experience from another sector.

This role would suit someone who enjoys structure, accuracy and problem-solving, and who wants to help a growing charity strengthen the way it manages risk, protects people and supports good governance.

What difference will you make?

This role will help Supporting Humanity strengthen the way we identify, assess and manage risk across the charity.

As a volunteer-led organisation working in mental health awareness and community support, it is important that our services, events, partnerships and internal processes are safe, well-governed and properly documented. The Risk Assessment Specialist will help us put practical systems in place so risks are not managed informally or reactively, but are recorded, reviewed and followed up consistently.

The role will have a direct impact by helping us:

• Keep volunteers, beneficiaries and service users safer.
• Improve the quality and consistency of risk assessments across departments.
• Maintain a clearer and more reliable central risk register.
• Strengthen incident and near-miss reporting so we can learn from issues and reduce repeat risks.
• Support Trustees and senior leaders with clearer risk information for decision-making.
• Improve compliance with governance, safeguarding, data protection and operational risk expectations.
• Build a more confident risk culture where volunteers understand how to manage risk without feeling blocked by unnecessary bureaucracy.

This support will help the charity grow in a safer and more sustainable way. It will also help protect public trust, improve accountability and give department leads clearer guidance when planning activities or making decisions.

For the volunteer, this is an opportunity to make a meaningful contribution to a growing charity while gaining hands-on experience across risk management, governance, compliance, reporting, incident management and Trustee-level communication.

Additional information

You can download the following documents: