Community Partnerships Officer

Role: To engage Chatham’s diverse communities in the heritage of St John’s Chatham. This role will be
responsible for working with local community groups to develop and deliver activities and programmes
to involve young people aged 14 – 24 years old, low income families, older adults over 55 years old,
homeless and vulnerably housed people and local schools as part of the major community programme
at St John’s Chatham.

Principal accountabilities
● Through engagement with local community groups create a programme that results in St John’s becoming a multipurpose space for the local community.
● Develop, manage and deliver community engagement projects to interpret the history of St John’s, based on research gathered by the Research & Development Consultant.
● Work with the Volunteer & Training Co-ordinator to explore the potential for a community based café that is used as a centre for the local community to meet and learn new skills and make new friends
● Work with local community organisations to create programmes that support the development of skills, such as budgeting, cooking, gardening, English as a second language etc
● Create and maintain an arts and crafts area within the café of St John’s that inspires people to respond to the heritage around them
● In collaboration with the Research Development Consultant identify potential speakers and deliver a programme of talks about the heritage of St John’s, Waterloo churches and Chatham.
● Develop a programme of events to test if there is a market for evening events at St John’s, including but not exclusively, concerts, silent discos, film showing
● Develop and deliver, in collaboration with local community partners a regular programme of events for different audiences
● Facilitating positive and effective partnerships between community groups, public sector bodies and stakeholders to support the Activity Programme.
● Lead on the external communications for the programme via social media channels and local media where appropriate

3. Experience, knowledge and skills
The experience, skills and abilities, and general attributes sections below capture the desired
requirements of the ideal post holder. No specific qualifications are required for this role
however qualifications may be used as evidence of skills and experience as appropriate.

Experience
● Detailed knowledge of best practice in events management and community engagement is required.
● Developing relationships with diverse communities.
● Developing and delivering activities for and with diverse communities.
● Experience of working with Church Communities.*
● Relevant experience of working in heritage.*
● Have a good understanding of the social and economic issues affecting communities in Chatham.*

Skills and abilities
● Ability to work on own initiative and deliver to deadlines.
● Ability to develop and deliver engaging programmes with diverse communities.
● Budget management.
● Project management.
● Excellent communication skills with organisations and individuals.
● Ability to work as part of a team.
● Ability to deliver high quality and productive work.
● Ability to maintain accurate records.
● Working knowledge of standard software packages.
● Knowledge software for budgeting purposes.*

General attributes
● Willingness to undertake additional training as needed to support the delivery of the Activity Plan.
● The commitment to the protection of safeguarding of children, young people and vulnerable adults.
● All staff are required to uphold the employer’s policies and communicate with diverse members of the public.
● To undertake a Disclosure and Barring Service (DBS) check as required.
● Previous experience in church operations.*

*desirable but not essential.

For more information, please see the Job Decription attached.