Executive Support to the Centre Director

• Join the friendly team at one of Australia’s most successful Community Legal Centres
• Supportive culture with a strong focus on staff wellbeing
• Not for profit salary packaging and additional leave benefits

 We are:

Refugee Advice & Casework Service (RACS), a nonprofit providing essential legal support and advocacy for people who have fled persecution to find safety in Australia. We help refugees, people seeking asylum, stateless individuals and those who are displaced. Our vision is of justice and dignity for and with refugees and since 1987, we’ve helped tens of thousands of people secure protection in Australia.

RACS provides free, dedicated legal services to people seeking asylum and refugees. Through individual advice sessions, community education and public advocacy, RACS strives to ensure that individuals and families, at risk of persecution or other forms of significant harm, gain access to equal and fair representation before the law, and are granted protection by Australia, and opportunities to seek family unity, in accordance with Australia’s international obligations.

The Role:

The primary role of the Executive Support to the Centre Director is to provide high-level, proactive and confidential assistance to the Centre Director (CD). You will manage the Centre Director’s diary, inbox, correspondence and meetings, and act as secretariat to the Board. Day to day, you will weigh requests from various stakeholders against RACS’s priorities, and make sure decisions turn into action.

This is a full-time 12-month contract position based in Randwick. Hybrid is available, part-time may be considered. Travel throughout metropolitan Sydney and work from our key locations in Parramatta and Auburn may be required from time to time.

You will:

• Provide proactive diary management for the Centre Director (CD), prioritising appointments and coordinating competing demands.
• Manage the CD’s inbox: monitor correspondence, draft responses, and resolve routine matters directly so the CD’s attention stays on decisions only they can make.
• Prepare correspondence, briefing notes, reports and presentations on behalf of the CD.
• Coordinate internal and external meetings for the CD, including agendas, papers, minutes and logistics.
• Arrange travel and logistics for the CD, including visits to intestate and internationally to attend parliamentary inquiries, sector conferences and community events.
• In consultation with the Head of Engagement and Communications, help the CD respond to media requests.
• Act as a key point of contact between the CD and internal and external stakeholders, representing RACS with professionalism and confidentiality at all times.
• Triage incoming requests against RACS’s strategic priorities and advocacy agenda, bringing urgent or high-stakes matters, such as policy changes or media enquiries, to the CD’s attention quickly.
• Prepare, collate and distribute Board and Committee agendas, papers and correspondence in line with governance requirements and timeframes.
• Attend Board meetings as required and prepare accurate, high-quality minutes and action registers.
• Work with the Philanthropy Manager to maintain a calendar of funding agreement milestones and reporting deadlines, and coordinate input from across RACS teams for reports and acquittals.
• Support the CD’s relationships with funders, philanthropic partners and pro bono firms, including preparing briefings ahead of meetings.

You are:

Looking for an opportunity to use your discretion and passion to make a difference to the lives of people seeking certainty and safety. You don’t need a traditional executive assistant background. Skills gained in community services, advocacy, legal administration, or through lived experience of migration are just as relevant. What matters most is that you are organised, write clearly, want to support the RACS Leadership Team and care about the people RACS serves.

The successful candidate will have the following:

Essential

• Executive support experience: demonstrated experience providing high-level executive or senior administrative support, including diary, inbox and executive coordination.
• Board secretariat: proven experience in Board or Committee secretariat support, including minute-taking.
• Stakeholder relationships: demonstrated ability to build trusted relationships with a diverse range of people, including Board members, staff, community organisations, funders and parliamentarians, and to represent RACS professionally.
• Follow-up: a track record of keeping decisions and actions moving to completion, with systems that make sure nothing important is missed.
• Judgement and discretion: sound judgement about priorities in a fast-moving legal and policy environment, and discretion with confidential client, staff and governance information.
• Autonomy: comfortable working independently, anticipating what is needed and resolving issues before they escalate.
• Communication: highly developed written and verbal communication skills, including formal correspondence and governance documentation.
• Organisation: strong organisational and time-management skills, with the ability to manage competing priorities accurately and to deadline.
• Technical competence: high proficiency in Microsoft Office and digital document management systems.
• Sector understanding: interest in and understanding of the political landscape in relation to refugees and people seeking asylum.
• Values: commitment to RACS’s values and to culturally safe, trauma-informed practice.

Desirable

• Lived expertise of displacement is highly valued by RACS
• Familiarity with governance frameworks and board compliance requirements.
• Experience or exposure to working in a community or advocacy setting, or other legal or migration practice, and the ability to work in an environment with limited resources.
• Experience working with people from a non-English speaking or vulnerable background, including those who may be detained.
• Experience improving administrative systems or workflows, including through digital tools.
• Communications skills in a language other than English will be considered highly favourably.

Why join RACS?

As well as being a part of a collaborative and supportive team of professionals making a real difference to the lives of people at risk, RACS employees enjoy:

• Generous salary packaging provisions, which can significantly increase take home pay
• Additional leave benefits including gifted leave at the end of the year
• Four days’ study leave per year
• Opportunities for growth, development and learning
• A wellbeing program with access to ongoing workshops and resources

Salary

The remuneration for the position is at the SCHADS Award rate Level 5, plus superannuation contribution and loadings. Salary packaging is available to increase your take home pay.

To Apply:

If you’re ready to join our team, please submit your CV, together with a cover letter addressing the above selection criteria. Applications will close at 9am, Monday 9 November. Interviews will be held in the fortnight following with a view to commence at RACS as soon as practical. To find out more, contact Kirsty Wood on (02) 8317 6537.

Please note, recruitment may commence earlier, and we may make decisions prior to the application close date should we find appropriate candidates.

RACS is committed to working together to achieve a more inclusive community. Our workplace strives to be one that embraces and celebrates diversity and the wide range of skills, expertise and experience we can all bring to strengthen our dynamic, collaborative, and responsive environment. RACS encourages people from all backgrounds to apply, including Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples, people from culturally and linguistically diverse (CALD) backgrounds, people that identify as LGBTQIA+ and people with disabilities.

Non-lawyers employed by RACS are required to comply with s 121 of the Legal Profession Uniform Law.

RACS particularly welcomes applications from those with the lived experience of seeking asylum, including those on temporary visas with the relevant permission to work.