Salary and grade:
Grade 5 SCP 24 - £36,032
Contract Type:
Fixed term contract until 31 August 2025
Hours
: 37 per week. evening and weekend work may be required in some circumstances
Location
: The designated office base is Abbey House, Abingdon. The councils operate in a truly flexible, and hybrid way where the focus is on outcomes not where you work.
Closing Date:
Midnight - Thursday 12 September 2024
Interview Date
: Wednesday 18 September 2024
About the role and what we're looking for
Job purpose
The Community Connector is a vital role supporting this work. While the Connectors primary focus is the provision of direct support to residents, the role also involves administering and monitoring specific government funded grant, assisting with set up and evaluation of VCS grants, research and development for hub workstreams or researching and reporting on issues pertaining to the work of the wider team and working with the connector supervisor, policy team and community hub team leader in the development of new policies and schemes.
Main duties and responsibilities
- •Respond to requests for help, received either directly from residents, or from partner organisations for support services that we cover.
- Work with and support residents, migrants and refugees both by telephone, email and in person to respond to requests for help including taking place in meetings, pop up events, drop in clinics and other locations as required.
- Assess each request for support and where possible put residents in touch with an agency or community group who can meet their needs.
- To refer/report any welfare concerns about residents to the appropriate agency.
- Liaise with internal stakeholders e.g safeguarding, housing or environmental health to improve outcomes for residents
- To lead on key areas of work as required and form working groups with the community hub and wider wellbeing team under the supervision of the community hub supervisor and team leader.
- Hosting and attending events in the community for residents and VCS organisations
- Working across refugee and asylum schemes in the district, including community support wraparound.
- Offering information, guidance and assistance to voluntary organisations and community groups to build resilience and collaborative approaches to community development, for example the Homes for Ukraine programme, Household Support Fundand related initiatives.
- Develop and maintain an up-to-date database of services available to support residents.
- Develop a detailed knowledge of communities and localities across both districts.
- Develop and maintain detailed knowledge and emerging trends and challenges within communities both locally and nationally. Build and strengthen local networks within the VCS working with the Councils Community Enablement team to build capacity.
- Work together across the Community Hub to ensure everyone is kept informed of progress within communities to maximise knowledge share, inform strategic direction and programmes of work and improve outcomes for the community.
- Writing decision notes and feeding into other internal governance documents e.g. cabinet papers, individual cabinet members decisions and assisting with the processes associated with this governance.
About you
Your essential skills, knowledge and experience
- This role involves contact with residents in vulnerable situations and a high level of personal resilience is essential
- Strong personal commitment to delivering positive outcomes for residents
- Ability to provide support and advice confidently, tactfully and sensitively
- Ability to feel and show empathy in difficult circumstances
- Strong levels of personal resilience
- Strong interpersonal and communication skills and effective negotiation skills
- Well organised, completer finisher
- Demonstrable problem-solving skills with high levels of initiative
- Flexible approach, able to pick up new tasks quickly using own initiative in a fast-paced environment
- Excellent time management and prioritisation skills
- Excellent literacy and numeracy including report writing skills
- Good level of operating MS Office packages, specifically MS Word and Excel
- Confident and outgoing, able to liaise effectively with people at all levels
Your essential qualifications
- Educated to degree level or equivalent, or equivalent level of experience
- If you have the following experience or qualifications – it's a bonus
- Experience of working in a local government environment
About us
Our vision and values are important to the councils, and we expect you to support them and embed them in the way we work.
The benefits we offer
- A basic 25 day annual leave per annum, rising to 30 days after five years. You also have all the bank holidays to look forward to and time off between Christmas and New Year.
- Flexible working and annualised hours – a flexible approach to work that our employees love!
- Salary pay awards – most jobs give scope for a pay increase after six months or the following April (depending on your start date) and we also review salaries each April.
- A generous career average pension scheme which includes life insurance of three times your salary
- The opportunity to purchase a bike through Cyclescheme (cheaper than directly through a store) so that you can cycle to work!
- Various schemes to keep you healthy (reduced gym membership, free swims, free eye tests for DSE users and more)
- We give you two days per year to volunteer within the local community.
- A range of resources, support, and activities to help you maintain your wellbeing including a monthly wellbeing hour in addition to annualised hours (the ability to work flexibly as long as, over the course of the year, you complete your contracted hours) and annual leave.
REF-216 457