Would you like to help improve education for young people with Down syndrome by volunteering with DSE?

We are looking for volunteers to serve as Trustees of Down Syndrome Education International, and for volunteers to help with software development.

DSE is a small organization with a global reach.

We have been at the forefront of developmental and educational research and evidence-based services improving outcomes for children with Down syndrome for over 30 years.

Our mission is to improve developmental and educational outcomes for children with Down syndrome. We focus on delivering measurable improvements in speech and language, reading and literacy, and number and math skills, memory and cognition, social development and educational attainment.

Trustee volunteers

Our Trustees play a key role guiding our work to ensure we deliver the best outcomes for young people with Down syndrome. We are currently seeking to recruit additional Trustees to the board of Down Syndrome Education International.

Trustees are responsible for the overall operation of the charity and ensuring that we meet our charitable purposes. They do this by deciding strategy.

Our charity Trustees also serve as company directors as the charity is incorporated as a limited company. For further information about the roles and eligibility as a charity Trustee, please see the guidance Charity trustee: what's involved.

We are looking for volunteers with a passion for improving education for children with Down syndrome worldwide through scientific research and practical support for families and professionals. You do not need to be a parent or relative of a person with Down syndrome to serve as a Trustee – indeed we encourage professionals to bring their perspective as much as we encourage family members.

When recruiting Trustees, we aim to assemble a balanced board including people with a range of skills and experience. Relevant skills and experience include:

  • technology and software development
  • sales and marketing
  • fundraising
  • accounting
  • business management
  • scientific research
  • teaching and therapy
  • publishing
  • training

Our Trustees meet online three times each year. You should plan to volunteer a minimum of 25 hours to the role each year. Trustees are unpaid though we can reimburse out-of-pocket expenses.

Software development volunteers

DSE is building systems to deliver personalized, evidence-based and data-driven advice and support to families and professionals worldwide, and to directly connect research to practice.

We are working on systems to collect developmental data, track progress and provide reliable advice, tailored to each individual child's stage and rate of development. These new digital services will be accessible via our web sites and apps, and will not only improve the support we can offer, but also help to build a databank for continuing scientific research.

We are looking for volunteers with relevant technical expertise who would like to help with ongoing development of these systems. The technologies we are using include .NET Core, Entity Framework Core, ASP.NET Core, Blazor, Xamarin (iOS/Android), .NET Maui, SQL Server, Cosmos DB, Service Bus, Docker, Kubernetes and Dapr, along with some JavaScript/TypeScript.

We would welcome volunteers with experience in any of these interested in helping with work on frontend, backend and/or native app development.

Get in touch

If you are interested in volunteering to serve as a Trustee of Down Syndrome Education International or to volunteer to help with software development (or both), please contact our CEO, Frank Buckley, via hello@dseinternational.org who will be pleased to discuss the roles further.