Development Consultant (Scottish College SAs)

NUS Charity is an exciting organisation developing and championing strong students’ unions. We connect our members and curate services to deliver advice, guidance and crisis support to students’ unions.

We do professional differently. We are a progressive charity representing students’ unions across the UK. The sector is inclusive, fun, dynamic and representative and we put students and students’ unions at the heart of everything we do. We are challenging but are committed to creating a supportive and flexible environment which pushes your personal development in your everyday activity.

What we do

Students’ unions can be transformational hubs for students, staff, and wider society. NUS Charity support our members’ development to enhance their capacity and harness opportunities to maximise their positive impact. We do this in many ways; from managing a purchasing consortium to drive great value for our members, to our development activity, supporting the best potential in students’ unions - we strive to make a difference to our members.

Within our small Union Development team we deal with a range of organisational development work, whether that’s being the Returning Officer and supporting students’ unions elections, running development events/webinars, helping new students’ unions create the structures that they need, coaching a students’ union leader who needs extra support, or creating guidance on new legislation that will effect students’ unions – no two days are the same.

What we need

NUS Charity is looking for a Development Consultant to deliver strategic and operational support in college students’ associations in Scotland. We’re looking to deliver high quality projects in organisational development, based on the Framework for the Development of Strong and Effective College Students’ Associations in Scotland, with a specific focus on supporting them to be autonomous, sustainable and effective in representing the interests of students. This role is part of an externally funded project, with funding provided by the Scottish Funding Council.

We welcome applications from homebased applicants outside the Edinburgh area, however there would be an expectation for you to visit the Edinburgh office once a week and students’ unions in Scotland frequently. For a successful candidate based outside the Edinburgh area, travel expenses and any travel time within work time for student union visits would be calculated based on an Edinburgh location.

Due to the role being externally funded, it is currently fixed term until the end of July 2022. However, should further, additional funding be secured, there is potential for the role's term to be extended. We would also be open to considering the role as a secondment opportunity.

We’re committed to equality of opportunity for all. We welcome applications from individuals regardless of their race, ethnicity, sexual orientation, religion, age, gender, or disability.

You can be yourself here whoever you are, be proud of the work you do and build a career in a place that knows different is good.

Benefits

We aim to practice what we preach so we’re happy to offer a flexible person-centred working environment with a great benefits package including:

• Generous holiday entitlement
• Flexible working opportunities
• Valuable workplace pension
• Enhanced parental pay policies
• Employee assistance programme

If you would like an informal conversation about this role or the application process, please contact us via our website.

Closing date for applications: Sunday 7th November 2021

Interview date: Wednesday 17th November 2021

Job Title:  Engagement Manager (Scottish Borders)
Role Reports To: Delivery Leader
Direct Reports: None
Job Family:  3 – £24,000 FTC until 31st March 2022
Department: Delivery
Full time role  - 35 hours 

Overview

Volunteering Matters is a national volunteering and social change charity. We use the unique power of volunteering to resolve some of the UK’s most pressing social issues.  In collaboration with local authorities, we have created a programme to support improvement in services for care experienced young people.

The system of public, private and third sector providers across a range of local services tend to be designed for people who are able to engage with little or no support.  People of all ages have barriers to engaging in services and care experienced young people can have more barriers than most.  For care experienced young people, whilst they have talent and potential, they face some of the starkest outcomes of any group in society given their additional barriers, and a legacy of discrimination, oppression, and a lack of access to resources and opportunities.

What is the problem we are trying to solve? Despite the challenges, there is a considerable growing consensus and momentum around the idea that care experienced young people cannot rely on services and infrastructure that have been designed without their input or have not been specifically designed with their needs in mind.

By making use of the Scottish Approach to Service Design and supporting No One Left Behind Principles, we therefore want to give care experienced young people a voice and an opportunity to influence change by involving them in the design of services and opportunities, providing them a platform to have their voices heard.

Role Purpose

As our Engagement Manager working in the Scottish Borders, you will work closely with care experienced young people to empower them to have a voice and to support them to identify and review referral pathways within the local authority.  You will provide an independent and improvement-orientated framework to self-assess services relating to care experienced people.

The ambition is then to co-design necessary services to fill gaps, providing a supported pathway for care experienced young people on their journey to sustainable fair work.  Finally, we hope to support in re-orientating existing structures, services, commissioning frameworks and pathways to enable improvement whilst offering peer support and learning opportunities for all areas under review.

The role involves working closely in collaboration with local services and within local governance and with the Improvement Service to make positive change.  This programme is currently operating in three local authorities in Scotland – Clackmannanshire, Scottish Borders and Dumfries and Galloway, so there will be opportunities for shared learning and peer support.

Key Duties & Responsibilities

• Collaborate with local authority to identify the appropriate and relevant departments and services requiring auditing and review
• You will attract, recruit and support care experienced young people to undertake an audit of pathways and services. Undertaking surveys, observations, questionnaires, and focus groups
• You will work closely with these individuals to identify the current processes and procedures within the relevant services and complete a mapping exercise to what the “exiting care” journey looks like for all care experienced young people
• Together with the young people, you will identify the existing interventions and their effectiveness against the improvement plan
• Create networks and conversations which enable local authorities to learn from care experienced individuals and families and develop collaborative learning opportunities
• You will develop evidence-based findings and recommendations and present back to decision makers to take the first steps of changing the lives of care experienced young people
• Recognise the confidential and sensitive nature of personal information relating to children, young people, and families and how this should be communicated, used, published, shared, recorded, and handled appropriately
• Contribute to the wider Volunteering Matters team, always upholding our values
• Establish and maintain effective working relationships and communication lines with colleagues, volunteers, young people, families, partners, and others
• Administration tasks including maintaining up- to- date, effective and accessible records and the use of Microsoft Office and other software packages

PERSON SPECIFICATION

Skills

• A strong passion and commitment to volunteering, our organisational values and flexible working strategy
• Excellent communication and facilitation skills with a strong ability to influence and motivate others
• Excellent people skills, including being able to develop professional and effective relationships with a range of stakeholders
• Excellent organisational and time management skills, including the ability to plan effectively
• Self-motivated, ability to work on own initiative, ability to multi-task, an approachable manner, team player and sound judgement skills
• Excellent administration and IT skills, including the use of Office 365 and Microsoft Teams

Experience

• Awareness and understanding of effectively supporting care experienced young people or families
• Experience in identifying and delivering effective change
• Effective teamwork including building effective relationships with internal and external partners
• Experience of group facilitation/ running activities or events to engage children, young people and families
• Volunteer Management
• Child Protection/Adult Protection and Safeguarding process and policies
• Experience of achieving ambitious goals and targets, completing a high standard of work to meet successful outcomes

Qualifications

Relevant experience and values alignment is more important for this role than specific qualifications

Other

The post will be home based however given the nature of this role you will be expected to work within the local community and be available to regularly engage with care experienced young people in a setting they feel most comfortable with.

Internet access to enable remote working is a requirement.  IT equipment and infrastructure will be supplied. Post Covid-19 and in accordance with any social distancing guidelines there may be an expectation to travel across Scotland to engage with colleagues, volunteers and beneficiaries.

This role requires membership of the PVG (Protection of Vulnerable Groups) scheme. Having a conviction will not necessarily cause a bar to employment.

 Our Values & Ways of Working

In all that we do, we embrace a philosophy of ‘Freedom within a Framework’ and are guided by our values:
Empowering, Inclusive, Compassionate, Positive & Straightforward.

To apply please visit our website 

Location: Dual - Edinburgh office & home

Do you have experience working in policy or public affairs? Are you passionate about driving change in government promoting the British Heart Foundation's (BHF) mission to fund lifesaving research and advocating for the 7 million people living in the UK with a heart and circulatory disease? 

If so, you may be the Policy and Public Affairs Officer we need!

About the role

You’ll support the promotion of the BHF to politicians, civil servants, researchers and service planners in Scotland, helping to ensure that key decision-makers consider the BHF the expert on heart health and research. 

You'll also look for ways to engage key stakeholders with our work in their constituencies and areas of influence in particular our research, survival, support and grow income programmes.

You’ll influence the Scottish Government and other key stakeholders on our influencing priorities, making cardiovascular disease a priority in Scotland; and contributing to ensuring Scotland has an environment which supports excellence in heart research.

The BHF Policy and Public Affairs team exists to build support amongst key decision makers so that we can beat heart disease for good. We develop the BHF’s position and engage and influence stakeholders to help ensure the UK remains a global leader in heart and circulatory research.

About you

You’ll have experience of working in policy development and a proven ability to write clearly, concisely and persuasively for political audiences. You’ll also have sound knowledge of the workings of government and governmental procedures in Scotland and an interest in and understanding of the external political environment and political developments as they affect the BHF.
 
You’ll join BHF Scotland at an exciting time for both the charity and heart health in Scotland and will play a key role in the strategic communication of the scale of BHF investment in Scotland and the impact it is having on the lives of everyone in Scotland and the UK.

To be successful in this role you’ll have the following skills and experience:
•            Exceptional research and analytical skills
•            Excellent communication skills, both verbal and written
•            Ability to take a flexible approach to work within a matrixed team
•            Able to build influential relationships with internal and external stakeholders

About us

Since the British Heart Foundation’s creation more than 50 years ago, the research we have funded has helped to transform the prevention, diagnosis and treatment of many heart and circulatory diseases. The breakthroughs we have helped make possible include new treatments for heart attacks, genetic diagnosis of inherited heart disease, the UK’s first heart transplant and the first portable defibrillator. 

Here at the British Heart Foundation we celebrate diversity and make inclusion part of what we do every day. Diversity and Inclusion forms a main pillar in our People Experience Strategy and we drive our strategy through our diversity and inclusion leaders group Kaleidoscope. Our aim is for all of our colleagues and volunteers to bring their true self to work, so we can continue to fund life saving research.
 
We understand that you might need a little help balancing your work and home life. Many of our people work flexibly in many different ways. Please feel free to talk to us about the flexibility you may need; we’re happy to explore what’s possible for you and the role.

What can we offer you

To find out more about benefits available at the BHF please download our benefits document at the bottom of this page.

Interview process

Interviews will be held via MS Teams.

How to apply

It’s quick and easy to apply for a role at the BHF. Just click through to our website below. All you’ll need is an up to date CV and a supporting statement, outlining your interest in the role and how you meet the role’s criteria.