We have an exciting opportunity for a new Outreach and Support Worker to join our Edinburgh and Lothians locality team, supporting individuals in Edinburgh and West Lothian. Venture Trust works with people experiencing complex life circumstances. Through our work, we provide the opportunity for people to recognise their confidence, motivation and core life skills that they need to make positive changes in their lives.

This role will be working across Edinburgh and West Lothian and you will be the first person our participants meet. You’ll be a caring, dynamic and driven person, dedicated to levelling the playing field and equipping people with the tools they need to thrive. You’ll be comfortable and confident working autonomously, working alongside people with complex lives.

Working across Edinburgh and West Lothian, and wilderness places across Scotland, you’ll provide bespoke and holistic 1:1 support for participants, spending time to get to know them, their strengths and where they want to go. You’ll help to shape their journeys, navigating 1:1, community and wilderness journey support, always harnessing the benefits of the outdoors and nature spaces to provide therapeutic benefit. You’ll accompany them on wilderness journeys and support them to develop employability skills.

Across Edinburgh and West Lothian, we need you to work closely with referrers and partners to provide joined up support for participants, managing the differing needs of your case load, including working with young people and adults.

As an Outreach and Support Worker, you will:

• Deliver group activities outdoors in community greenspaces
• Provide one-to-one support for participants, identifying and removing barriers to participation and supporting towards their individual goals
• Maintain positive relationships with stakeholders, generating referrals for all programmes
• Promote Venture Trust within local communities
• Support the delivery of wilderness journey opportunities in Scotland’s wilder places
• Work closely with referral partners and any other stakeholders to provide joined up support for participants
• Work within a team structure with hybrid working arrangements

Full job description.

We are seeking Family Learning workers to deliver a series of groups and activities designed to support parents of families with limited English, to familiarise parents with nursery and primary school practices and to enable them to successfully integrate within their local communities.

Their duties will include delivering a series of Family ESOL programmes to assist parents and children with transitions from nursery to school, encourage reading in English and their home language, discuss intercultural aspects of parenting and understand the Scottish education system. This could also include support to bilingual parents attending courses such as PEEP, Raising Children with Confidence and more.

An Adult Education centred approach is required for this work.

Experience of working with people whose first language is not English or a qualification in English language teaching is desirable.

Applicants should have good literacy skills in English.

Experience of group work with adult learners is required.

We would welcome applications from speakers of Arabic, Kurdish, Dari, Pashto, Somali and Ukrainian.

As an equal opportunity employer, we recognise and value the benefits that a diverse workforce with different values, beliefs, experience, and backgrounds brings. We would like to encourage conversations with people who have not previously thought about employment within a Local Authority.

We warmly invite people to take this opportunity to demonstrate their ability regardless of age, disability, sex, gender, race, marital status, sexual orientation, religious or political beliefs.

We're committed to creating a workplace culture where all our people feel valued, included and able to be their best at work, and we recognise the benefits that a diverse workforce with different values, beliefs, experience, and backgrounds brings to us as an organisation.

As part of our goal to improve our organisational culture and create a great place to work together for the people of Edinburgh, we want to make sure that we’re bringing the best people into our roles, not just in their skills and experience but also in their approach to work.

To help achieve this, we’re changing the way we interview and assess candidates by moving from a competency-based interview approach to a behavioural and technical (skills for the job) based approach. This new way of interviewing will allow us to assess how you think and how you would bring Our Behaviours of Respect, Integrity and Flexibility into your ways of working.

Our salary range typically reflects the initial starting salary and annually increases until it reaches the top of the range.

The National Training Manager works with people across Scotland to ensure that as many people as possible get the knowledge and tools they need to address mental health this includes staff within the organisation and externally to other audiences.

Our person-centred approach puts the people we work with at the heart of what we do ensuring they have greater opportunity, can build confidence and social skills, and become more integrated into their communities. By building connections and support around individual needs, our team of nearly 200 staff and 800 members value the lived experience which informs the services we deliver. We look beyond illness by taking a holistic approach that ensures no one has to face mental ill health alone.They work closely with the Fundraising, Operations, and Services teamsto develop, quality assure, manage, and deliver Mental Health courses across Scotland. Deliveringto a diverse audience; including staff and as part of our income generation portfolio.

The National Training Manager will continuously evaluate, review, and update materials to ensure that the courses remain consistent relevant, up-to-date and evidence based to ensure the highest quality and best practice in all that we deliver.

They build and maintain connections with other learning providers and stakeholders to call on specific expertise as needed, and to ensure we complement and add value to other available training. This includes working collaboratively with Mental Health UK training provided to schools through the Bloom and Your Resilience Programmes.

Who are we looking for:

We are looking for an individual with previous experience of developing and delivering training to a variety of audiences adn someone who is comfortable cultivating positive working relationships.

The successful candidate will work closely with the Head of Quality and Improvement to support the internal training needs of the organisation and so some previous experience of quality assurance is desirable.

We are committed to exploring flexible working opportunities which benefit the individual and the charity and are a “Happy to Talk Flexible” employer. Although, it should be noted that this post will largely be based and work in Edinburgh.

If you are passionate about enabling Change Mental Health to deliver a valuable training service to communities and organisations across Scotland and feel your profile matches this role’s criteria, then we want to hear from you!

Why work with us?

Change Mental Health is a leading national mental health charity providing unique support to people with severe and enduring mental ill health.

With 50 years’ experience across Scotland, we believe people affected by poor mental health and illness deserve the highest quality of support in the community and that every person has the right to be valued and to share in the opportunities, challenges, and joys of everyday life.

Our person-centred approach puts the people we work with at the heart of what we do ensuring they have greater opportunity, can build confidence and social skills, and become more integrated into their communities. By building connections and support around individual needs, our team of nearly 200 staff and 800 members value the lived experience which informs the services we deliver. We look beyond illness by taking a holistic approach that ensures no one has to face mental ill health alone.

Benefits

• Professional development including funded opportunities.
• A generous 37 days’ holiday.
• A 35-hour working week, enhanced sick pay & season ticket loan.
• A great work life balance with flexible and blended working environment.
• 24/7 access to an award-winning Employee Assistance Programme providing free legal, financial and medical advice as well as support with life’s challenges.
• Enhanced sick pay and leave entitlements
• Paid Mental Wellbeing Days
• Cycle to Work Scheme
• Blue Light Discount Card