Community Action Worker

Join our team to help us build sustainable community-led social action in North Kirklees!

This is an incredibly exciting opportunity for someone looking to play a key role in a small but influential national charity building a positive legacy for the late Jo Cox MP.

We are looking for someone with experience of working on community building and organising initiatives, who is skilled in engaging and working collaboratively with diverse communities, with a self-motivated, action-oriented approach, and a genuine commitment to equity, diversity and inclusion.

Through this role you will play a key part in continuing Jo Cox’s legacy over the years to come.

ABOUT THE ROLE

The Community Action Worker will frequently travel across Batley, Dewsbury and Heckmondwike to support local people and groups to develop community-led social action initiatives that bring people together across lines of difference. Working in line with asset-based community development and community organising approaches, you will support local groups to start, build, grow and sustain projects that strengthen neighbourliness and bring people together around shared interests. 

You will also work as part of a local interdisciplinary team to develop arts-based activity through a More in Common Creative Collective. This would celebrate difference and challenge narratives of division through creative community work. You will also support the delivery of facilitated dialogue through the Let’s Talk programme, helping communities address division through conversation.

ABOUT YOU

We’re looking for someone who is deeply committed to building community power and supporting community-led change. You will bring experience in asset-based community development, community organising, movement building, or closely related approaches, which might include mentoring and coaching. Alongside this you will have a relational way of working that starts with listening, trust-building, and identifying the strengths, interests and leadership that already exist within communities. 

You will be self-motivated and comfortable working on your own initiative, bringing organisational skills needed to contribute to planning, delivery of events, learning and reporting. Experience of partnership working, supporting community events or social action, and contributing to funded programmes would all be valuable. Furthermore, you will be confident working across culture, faith, ethnicity, class and other lines of difference. You will have good interpersonal skills and will be able to build relationships quickly while approaching this work with humility, ambition, curiosity and respect. 

Above all, you will bring values that align strongly with The Jo Cox Foundation’s vision and Jo’s ‘more in common’ ethos. This will be reflected in your belief in the strengths of communities, and your commitment to bringing people together across difference.

ABOUT THE JO COX FOUNDATION’S WORK IN WEST YORKSHIRE

The Jo Cox Foundation was established in 2016 by the friends and family of the late Jo Cox MP. The Foundation exists to make positive change on issues that Jo was passionate about. Just as she did, we believe in working together effectively with individuals and organisations that share the belief that we have more in common than that which divides us.

We build stronger communities and encourage more respectful politics. To date, our campaigns and initiatives have addressed a broad range of issues including tackling loneliness, bridging divides, and reducing abuse and intimidation in public life. Jo Cox’s career took her around the world, yet her sense of belonging and her identity were always firmly rooted in West Yorkshire.

Too often our politics and society emphasises our differences rather than our commonality. We believe that helping people to recognise that commonality allows us to feel more connected, build empathy and increase trust. It also builds understanding of the stark inequalities that many groups face within our society and strengthens the collective will to take action. Though we cannot address the root cause of all inequalities, we commit to championing change and advocating for action.

The Jo Cox Foundation continues to maintain its roots in West Yorkshire. We aim to generate and support community-led action - undertaken with local knowledge, credibility and evidence - to drive change alongside communities and to share success across national networks.

“I am Batley and Spen born and bred, and I could not be prouder of that. I am proud that I was made in Yorkshire and I am proud of the things we make in Yorkshire. Britain should be proud of that, too.”

Jo Cox, Maiden Speech 2015

ABOUT BRIDGING & BELONGING 

We have completed Stage 1 of Bridging & Belonging, which involved a series of local listening events. What we heard was clear: people in North Kirklees want more chances to connect with one another and to shape what happens in their neighbourhoods, using their own ideas, skills and experience to make a positive difference.

We are now moving into Stage 2, a four-year project funded through the National Lottery Community Fund’s Reaching Communities programme. This phase will strengthen neighbourliness, reduce division, and support community-led action that builds stronger, more connected communities. It is rooted in asset-based community development and creative, participatory community organising, with a focus on helping local people start, grow and sustain social action that brings people together across lines of difference.

Bridging & Belonging is already established, you will join a project with strong foundations, trusted relationships and a clear direction. Working alongside colleagues, residents and local partners, you will help shape the next phase of the project while keeping local people at the heart of its priorities and activities.

Over the coming years, the work will support community-led action that strengthens neighbourliness and hyper-local connection, creates new ways for people to connect across communities, and develops projects built around shared interests, shared places and shared concerns. It will also back activity that celebrates local strengths, makes space for difference, and builds a stronger sense of belonging.

Alongside this, you will also:

• help develop a More in Common Creative Collective with residents and partners, using arts and creativity to challenge division and share local stories;

• support the development of a Community of Practice that brings together staff, partners and community members to share learning and build relationships; and

• support Let’s Talk, a facilitated conversation series that helps people address tensions and divisions through careful, relational dialogue.

WORKING AT THE JO COX FOUNDATION

One of our core values at The Jo Cox Foundation is empathy, and we work hard to apply this to our relationships with our staff as well within the work that we do.

As a remote organisation, we recognise the challenges that this brings, so we carefully consider how we can build a team culture where everyone feels accepted and included. We do this through a combination of frequent team days (with a mixture of remote and in-person days) and through regular and ongoing ways for the team to connect, both for work and to socialise.

In our most recent staff survey:

• 100% of staff felt proud to work at The Jo Cox Foundation

• 100% felt that The Jo Cox Foundation actively supports their wellbeing

• 100% thought that the team at The Jo Cox Foundation works in a supportive and collaborative way