Volunteering Matters

At Volunteering Matters we use volunteering’s unique power to bring people together and build stronger, more resilient communities across the UK.

We bring people together to resolve some of society’s most complex issues. From social isolation and loneliness; improving health and wellbeing; building skills, confidence, and opportunity; to ensuring young people can become change makers in their community, the impact that we make is great. And we won’t stop until everyone in the UK has the opportunity to thrive.

People-led and impact driven, we are a national charity that is deeply embedded in local areas across the UK. We operate in five regions: London and the South East; Wales and the West of England; East of England; the Midlands and North West England; and Scotland and North East England. We also have an Employee Volunteering Team with over 25 years’ experience, acting as a broker to provide tailor-made solutions to employers. We turn local knowledge and energy into action and progress, building stronger communities and a better future for all.

This is an exciting time to be joining the team. We’re changing the way we work to meet new ambitions and make sure our impact continues to grow alongside out business.

Role Purpose

ProjectScotland, part of the national charity Volunteering Matters, supports young people to get on in life through the power of volunteering. We are looking to recruit a dynamic and professional Community Development Worker to join our team in West Lothian. We are looking for a creative, self-starter. The right candidate would be someone who can work flexibly, and can demonstrate an understanding of, and commitment, to our organisational values. Our ideal candidate is someone with experience of consulting with young people, engaging them in various ways and using their feedback to change the way services are designed and delivered. We are open to recruiting someone to this role based on a secondment arrangement, if of interest.

Programme Overview

ProjectScotland have secured a small amount of funding to complete a short-term project in West Lothian, involving various external partners and local young people (aged 16-30).

Feedback from Employability Services in West Lothian is that young people are increasingly presenting themselves with poor mental health, and these services are not necessarily designed or equipped to effectively respond to that need. Waiting lists for mental health support are long, and young people often need to engage with multiple agencies to receive appropriate support that works for them.

In this role, you will:

• Attract local young people to take part in this short-term research and social action programme.
• Engage with those young people – by listening, consulting, understanding their experience of accessing local employability services, the extent to which these services have supported their mental health needs, identify new ideas, solutions and recommendations for change.
• Create a final report, presentation, or toolkit which presents the findings, with recommendations for the future.
• Work alongside our partners, SAMH, who will be delivering a range of mental health training for West Lothian organisations. Support SAMH by understanding what training organisations would find helpful and supporting the coordination of these sessions.
• Engage with a range of partners, networks and forums across West Lothian including the Local Employability Partnership, Third Sector Employability Forum, West Lothian Gateway and others.
• Contribute to the development of an evaluation for the work, to articulate its value locally and nationally with a view to supporting its further roll out

Key Duties & Responsibilities

• Consistently role model and display our organisational values.
• Successfully attract and engage young people, ensuring they can easily participate in this research and social action programme irrespective of background.
• Develop strong relationships with young people, ensuring they are supported, valued, and listened to. Find creative ways to engage with young people to get their feedback and views.
• Develop strong relationships with partner organisations in West Lothian to identify young people who could take part in this programme, and to understand each organisations training needs and requirements.
• To manage the risk assessment, quality assurance and audit processes as appropriate
• Ensure monitoring, impact and evaluation information and data is collected and that the project meets its agreed targets, reporting format and schedule.
• Effective use of IT including Office 365, Microsoft Teams, Zoom and social media. This includes creating engaging publicity content that can be promoted across our website and social media.
• To ensure all the above is done with excellent record keeping, in accordance with compliance requirements. This includes the use of Salesforce CRM system (training will be given).

Skills Required

• A confident self-started, someone who is creative and can use their own initiative.
• Excellent knowledge and understanding of the life challenges and barriers that young people face today in Scotland – ideally trauma-informed in your approach.
• Excellent written and verbal communication skills including being able to have strategic conversations with external partners one minute and talk to an anxious or unsure young person the next.
• Excellent people skills with the ability to build professional, long-term relationships with various stakeholders, to influence and motivate others.
• Excellent organisational and IT skills including the ability to manage workload and prioritise effectively, the use of Microsoft Office, Microsoft Teams and Zoom.
• A creative approach to problem solving, with strong attention to detail.
• Skills around creating content for social media.
• Creating, coordinating, and supporting reporting channels around contract compliance and impact measurement.
• Commitment to, and knowledge of managing inclusive practice and a commitment to equality and diversity.

Experience Required

• Experience working directly with young people, particularly those who face challenges and barriers achieving employability or other goals.
• Experience working with a wide range of stakeholders, proven ability to communicate effectively and work as part of a team.
• Experience of project coordination/management, achieving high targets, managing a busy workload, and working to strict deadlines.
• Understanding of and full commitment to Equality, Diversity, and Inclusion.
• Day to Day Working

Part of your working week will be based within West Lothian communities, meeting young people, partner organisations and other stakeholders. For the remainder of the time, you can work from home (must be relatively local to West Lothian due to the need to travel for part of the week).

Good internet access and a suitable home working environment is required. All I.T. equipment, mobile phone and infrastructure will be supplied.

Protection of Vulnerable Groups (PVG) scheme

This role requires membership of the PVG (Protection of Vulnerable Groups) scheme. We will support

you to become a PVG member if you are not already. Having a conviction will not necessarily cause a bar to employment.

Qualifications & Experience

Relevant experience and values alignment is more important for this role than specific qualifications. The role does require someone with experience of working with or supporting children and families with a focus on ethnically diverse communities. Speaking/understanding additional languages to English is also desirable.

This role requires an enhanced DBS check which will be undertaken with the successful candidate before starting.

Location

With a flexible working policy, the postholder will be based from home. The postholder will need internet access to enable remote working. I.T. equipment and infrastructure will be supplied. There is an expectation to travel across Hounslow in the role.

The Scottish Recovery Consortium is passionate about building recovery from addiction in Scotland. Our response to the new strategy landscape is Support, Represent, Connect. Scotland has a rich history of people with lived experience using their experiences to improve services and structures for people still accessing support. Over the past few years, the emergence of Lived Experience Panels has created a unique opportunity to further embed our voices within the system. This post will support the development and growth of a Lived Experience Panel in Fife.

What the post involves:

• Work with people with lived experience, SRC, Fife ADP, treatment providers and local services to support the creation, development and integration of a Lived Experience Panel across Fife ADP.

• To support and coordinate the ongoing activities, development, and integration of Fife’s Lived Experience Panel.

• To support, coordinate, and train people with lived experience to develop an understanding of treatment and support systems. Utilise this learning and knowledge to cascade information more broadly across communities to increase the number of people in recovery who share their experience and contribute to local decision making about treatment and support.

• To support and offer peer mentor support to new and existing Lived Experience Panel members from across Fife to reflect on learning and experience of being a lived experience panel member.

• To link the work of the Lived Experience Panel and Fife ADP.

• To develop a links and relationships with all services that support people with addiction issues.

Our ideal candidate will have this experience and knowledge:

• Knowledge and experience of the recovery movement and people in recovery in in Fife and across Scotland.

• Knowledge and experience of addiction treatment services and system in Fife and Scotland.

• Experience in collaborating and jointly working with a range of key ADP stakeholders, key local providers and services and recovery communities in Fife.

• Evidence of high level on going personal development through formal or informal education, training or self-directed learning.

• Knowledge of how stigma affects people with addiction issues, why that happens and how can it be challenged and resolved.

• Knowledge of a rights-based approach and experience of having applied it in action.

Our ideal candidate will demonstrate these abilities and skills:

• Strong interpersonal and relationship building skills.

• Listening and observation skills that will be utilised across a range of different diverse groups, services and people in recovery and leaders across Fife ADP.

• Ability to communicate ideas in writing, in person and in presentations.

• Ability to co-ordinate a range of diverse groups, providers, recovery communities and leaders across Fife ADP.

• Strong organizational and administration skills.

• Ability to self-start and organise own workload.

• IT and social media skills.

Everyone involved in the SRC has a strong:

• Commitment to equality of opportunity

• Commitment to the principles and values of recovery

A commitment to equality of opportunity is essential and a personal or family lived experience of recovery from addiction is a desirable asset in this work.

Interview for this position will be held on week commencing 19th June 2023.

For an informal discussion about any aspect of this post please contact Derek Watt, Operational Lead – 0141 559 6934

Do want to be part of making Scotland the best place for LGBTQ+ young people to thrive and flourish?

We are looking for a talented fundraiser to join our team and change lives by generating income for our award-winning youth work.

As the Fundraising Manager (Grants), you will help make our strategic aims a reality by raising money for both our core day-to-day activities and our project work, by building and managing a varied pipeline of trusts and foundations to secure small, medium and large gifts through prospect research, funder stewardship and high-quality funding applications and proposals.

Our ideal candidate will be a highly organised and experienced fundraiser with excellent communication skills and the ability to create a compelling case for support. This post would be ideal for someone with a passion for fundraising and a desire to create a more inclusive Scotland for LGBTQ+ young people.

This is an amazing opportunity to shape and share the story of a national charity delivering life-changing youth work for LGBTQ+ young people.

Enable is one of Scotland's leading charities, consisting of three pillars - enable cares, enable works and enable communities.

Across the group, we deliver community projects and campaigns, self-directed health and social care support and employability and training for people throughout Scotland.

Enable Communities are now delighted to be launching a new programme for children and young people with learning disabilities, funded by Motability.

Delivered in 6 areas of Scotland, we will be designing and delivering a curriculum for groups aged 8-12, 13-15 and 16-18 years of age that enables them to develop new skills, participate in their own communities using active travel and have loads of fun.

Our Youth Coordinators will support children and young people who have a learning disability to become active, confident members of their community by supporting them to utilise public transport and develop their peer networking skills.

About You

We are looking for candidates who want to inspire children and young people with learning disabilities and can support them to become active, confident and develop new friends in their own community. Successful candidates will also demonstrate:

• Experience working with young people
• Understanding of the issues affecting transitions in to adulthood for young people with learning disabilities
• The ability to deliver fun and motivating information sessions and workshops to children and young people
• Excellent communication skills both verbal and written

Please see the full job description for more information.

About Us

At Enable, we're passionate about developing all our staff and provide an extensive training programme, combined with a commitment to create career development opportunities.

We also have an excellent range of staff benefits on offer including but not limited to:

• Health cash plans providing a wide range of health benefits to help people cover the cost of their everyday health care.
• Employee Assistance Programme
• Cycle to Work Scheme*
• Season Ticket Loans*
• Blue Light Card

This is an exciting opportunity to join a group that continues to shake up the social care sector in Scotland making a real difference to people’s lives. Don’t miss the chance to help shape this journey.

Enable is an equal opportunities employer and our recruitment, selection and assessment process is based entirely on values, skills and competencies required of the specific roles. We welcome candidates from all backgrounds.

*Terms and Conditions Apply