Carers of West Lothian has provided support to unpaid carers for 30 years, in the last 3 years expanding support to disabled people. In response to one of our colleagues moving on to new opportunities, we are looking for someone to join our team of Support Workers, providing information, advice and support to unpaid carers and disabled people living in West Lothian. We require someone with previous experience of providing support to service users over the age of 18, with the confidence to liaise with professional health and social care teams as well as directly with our service users. Our team will be working both from home and from our office in Livingston, so following training, we expect this role to adopt a more flexible working pattern. This position is being advertised as a full time position however we would consider applications from those looking for job share opportunities.

Main Function of the Job

• to support unpaid carers and disabled people to access appropriate services and support from other organisations
• to provide individual one to one support over the phone, online and face to face to our service users
• to help with peer support groups
• to provide information and advice on a range of topics to unpaid carers and disabled people
• to raise the profile of our service users’ needs and help us raise our profile to reach more people who need our support

Carers of West Lothian has provided support to unpaid carers for 30 years, in the last 3 years expanding support to disabled people. In response to COVID, we are at an important point in our journey to enable us to explore different income generating ideas, including funding, securing contracts and also generating income through trading.

To prepare us to do this in the best way for our organisation, our service users and our staff, we are looking for someone to work with our CEO to drive our sustainability plans forward over the next five years. This opportunity will suit someone with strong funding and tendering experience and success, as well as a commercial mind with an understanding of how to turn research for an idea, into a trading opportunity. This person will be results focussed with strong interpersonal and communications skills.

We see this post working from home until COVID restrictions allow more working from offices; when possible, our team will adopt a blended approach to working from home and from our Livingston offices. Limited travel throughout the West Lothian area is expected as part of this role.

Main Function of the Job

Roll out 2 pilots for trading ideas:

Review research informing pilots

Prepare plan to roll out pilots

Coordinate promotion and recruitment of volunteers

Main point of contact for both pilots with all customers and volunteers

Evaluate pilots

Prepare plan to roll out first 3 years of trading projects

Secure funding to employ Development Officer to roll out project

Funding

Update Funding Plan

Source project funding from 2022 for up to 5 years

Work with CEO to prepare and submit funding applications

Tender Preparation

Work with CEO to prepare for tender submission

Work with CEO to respond to tender documentation

A full Job Description is available for download below.

Carers of West Lothian has provided support to unpaid carers for 30 years, in the last 3 years expanding support to disabled people. In response to COVID, we now need to add to our staff team. We are looking for someone to join our team of Support Workers, providing information, advice and support to unpaid carers and disabled people living in West Lothian. We require someone with previous experience of providing support to service users over the age of 18, with the confidence to liaise with professional health and social care teams as well as directly with our service users. Initially, we see this post holder working from home until COVID restrictions allow more working from offices; when possible, our team will adopt a blended approach to working from home and from our Livingston offices.

Main Function of the Job

• to support unpaid carers and disabled people to access appropriate services and support from other organisations

• to provide individual one to one support over the phone, online and face to face to our service users

• to facilitate peer support groups

• to provide information and advice on a range of topics to unpaid carers and disabled people

• to raise the profile of our service users’ needs and help us raise our profile to reach more people who need our support

Organisation

Carers of West Lothian provides information, advice and support to unpaid carers and disabled people living in West Lothian. As we focus on our long term sustainability, we have secured funding from Adapt & Thrive for a 1 year fixed term project to roll out 2 trading pilots which will provide support at home for unpaid carers and provide a fast track counselling service. If these pilots are successful, we aim to explore opportunities to roll these social enterprises out in West Lothian.

Role

The Development Worker will lead on planning and running these pilots, evaluating them and prepare plans to roll them out and will work with the CEO to source and will work with the CEO to secure additional project funding for the wider organisation.

The Person

If you are an experienced Development Worker in the third sector and have a knowledge of social enterprise and funding experience, we would like to hear from you. This post will help us to explore our ability to generate our own trading income as well as help us to source and secure long term project funding helping us to expand our support for unpaid carers and disabled people. It will be a busy role, working with our staff and volunteer team at Carers of West Lothian, as well as working with our clients. This will not be an office based role; our team are splitting their time working from home and our office in Livingston and in this job you will travel throughout West Lothian, meeting clients and volunteers, so you should be comfortable working with people as well as be articulate, organised, a strong communicator and a team player.

Key Job Responsibilities

1. Roll out a development plan to pilot and evaluate two trading ideas.

2. Co-ordinate the trading pilots, organising promotions, recruiting and managing volunteers, meeting clients, managing resources, arranging service delivery and evaluating the service, taking lessons learned into forward planning.

3. If pilots are successful, develop a 3 year business plan to roll out the two trading ideas.

4. Working with the Chief Executive, complete funding applications, to secure project funding from 2022 onwards.

Carers of West Lothian (CoWL) has provided support to unpaid carers for 30 years and in the last 3 years expanding support to disabled people. We have secured time limited funding for a Family Support Worker in the Young Carer Service, and we are looking for someone to join this team. The Family Support Worker will provide information, advice and support to young carers and their families throughout West Lothian.

Ideally, we would like someone with previous experience of providing support to young people and someone who is confident to liaise with young carers and families.

Initially, this post holder may be working from home until COVID restrictions allow a return to the office; when possible, our team will adopt a blended approach to working from home and from our Livingston office.

Main Function of the Job

• to support young carers and their families to access appropriate services and support from other organisations

• to provide individual one to one support over the phone, online and face to face to our young carers and their families

• to facilitate peer support groups