Asked to work with sex offenders - want to leave job...

[wingscrow]

I have worked for various charities for 20 years but I am desperate to leave that sector. Has anyone done it and what sort of job did you move to?

Every time I get hired by a charity to do a specific job a few months later the job becomes something completely different.

The last straw is my current job: hired to run a project for people with mental health issues like depression and anxiety. Now being asked to take on clients who are coming out of prison/secure wards after committing serious offences including rape and homicide. I have no training/training in this field. No plan to provide me with training or to employ someone with experience of this client group. I was victim of a sexual assault myself by an ex-partner and I simply don't want to help sex offenders...

The also are trying to remove flexible working (I work two days a week from home) although my work pattern is written in my contract and this was one of the specific reason I took the job. Add to that poor pay, no opportunity to move up, endless admin and pointless meetings which prevent me from working with the people I am actually supposed to be supporting . I am just sick and tired of charities...

I know I am ranting but I need a new part -time job to save my sanity. I have a long term health condition and all this stress is getting to me.

Has anyone made a successful move to another sector after working for charities? my experience is team, volunteer, budget and project management and I have also done marketing and PR but that was about 10 years ago. Would welcome any suggestion.

Eugh, yanbu

I wouldn't be able for that at all. I always thought I'd like to work for a charity but what you describe sounds very difficult.

I got in to the civil service at 47 and I like it. Secure. I keep getting very small raises (about 3 a year) without asking for them. Some are increments and some are inflationary. There's the option to go on a reduced work share pattern (I'm on 90% right now, which is every second monday off).

After seeing the number of stings on sex offenders who target children online & are caught for the fourth or fifth time I would not want to work with them. I have seen videos of men & women who have been speaking to 10+ children some as young as 7 or 8. Look at the Civil Service, it is very family friendly, flexible working.

Thank you for the responses so far. I will have a look at the Civil Service.

I too work for a charity, I spent many years on the clinical hospice side. I now work in the retail side as shop manager.
We have community pay back people to do their hours in the shop. When I first started I queried what kind of offender I would be required to take on and was assured it would just be petty driving offences, no theft, violence or sex offences.
I since feel I have been lied to, yep we one guy who was convicted of excessive speeding, nice guy extremely helpful. Then I had a woman who had been done for quite a lot of money being robbed from a shop she worked in……she was very nice and an excellent worker and explained her side of the story……….I’ll leave that there.
I now have a guy who I’m getting more concerned about as he has given two completely different stories about why he was convicted, one some gang stole his company car and he got the blame and the other was he accidentally glassed someone while very drunk in a club………
The probation officer is just as evasive, so I have stated I will no longer have community pay backs.
However, on a different note I am completely disillusioned with working for a charity, as you say the rules change every five minutes. On the hospice side I just worked part time, set weekdays so nothing really affected me that much , just made us all feel so frustrated we wanted to leave at least once a month!
On the retail side it’s a different ball game and I don’t have the inclination or the energy to keep up with the ridiculous, constantly changing, demands of upper management in their ivory towers. The latest one is no paid staff can have Saturday as a day off unless sick or on AL……….sorry but this is a step too far, after 3 lockdowns and not seeing some of my family for months, I won’t do this.
My notice is in and I leave in a couple of weeks……..good riddance to charities.