Peer Advocate Worker Jobs in Oxford, Oxfordshire
About us:
Action for M.E. is the only charity in the UK providing direct support including healthcare to children and adults with M.E.. We provide vital support services, campaign for change and invest in ground-breaking research to help put an end to the ignorance, injustice and neglect experienced by people with M.E.
Opportunity:
Having been paused to new referrals, Action for M.E.’s free, independent, Adults Advocacy service will soon be re-opening. It’s one of our range of free Support Services that work with adults, young people, and/or families living with M.E. We support colleagues across the team to take part in and share reflective practice, self-care, peer-support and training.
Our Adults Advocacy service offers non-statutory, single-issue, instructed advocacy for adults with a confirmed diagnosis of M.E. We encourage self-advocacy where possible, though many of our clients are too severely affected by M.E. to be able to take undertake this.
As an Adults Advocate, you will manage a caseload of clients, as well as inputting and contributing to the triage process along with your Advocacy colleagues. You will meet with clients by phone, email, Zoom and/or SMS; we can also facilitate communication by post if this is required. We are not able to offer home visits or face to face meetings.
What we can offer you:
We offer fully remote and flexible working with generous annual leave (30 days plus bank holidays, pro rata). The wellbeing of our staff is important to us, we offer a range of benefits to employees including (but not limited to) access to free counselling and voluntary wellbeing weekday sessions, examples of recent sessions include guided group meditations and a book club.
To view the full job description, download the job pack, and apply for this role, please visit our Recruitee site (please note that we only accept applications via Recruitee; any application sent directly to an Action for M.E. mailbox will not be considered).
Should you have any questions about the role, or require any reasonable adjustments to the recruitment process, please don’t hesitate to contact our recruitment team, details of how to do this are contained in the application pack, "how to apply" section.
The client requests no contact from agencies or media sales.
Our work reaches into the heart of the communities of Oxfordshire, and we’re pleased to be expanding our Community Engagement work into the areas of Cherwell and West Oxfordshire. The key towns in these areas are Banbury, Bicester, Kidlington, Witney, Carterton and Chipping Norton, including surrounding villages. Your role will be to set up peer-to-peer support groups, information days, befriending partnerships, and to be a point of contact for our work in the north and west of the county. Our mission is to support visually impaired people to live independent and active lives and you’ll be playing a key part in this.
Job Title: Community Engagement Worker (North and West)
Hours: 35 hours per week
Salary: £23,000 – £28,000 per year dependent on experience
Annual Leave: 25 days per year plus bank holidays (to increase after 3-years)
Contract Type: Permanent (6-month probationary period)
Reporting to: Community Engagement Lead
Start date: Summer 2024
Base: Office/home-based with frequent travel across Cherwell and West Oxfordshire.
Closing Date: Midday 29th April 2024
Interview Date: Wednesday 8th May 2024 (in person at Bradbury Lodge, Oxford)
Job Purpose:
To support visually impaired people to live independent and active lives by providing a range of activities and groups across the north and west of Oxfordshire.
Duties:
- Setting up and supporting peer-to-peer support groups
- Holding information days within local libraries, community centres and other key locations
- Setting up walking groups as part of our Green Walks Project
- Demonstrating and setting up daily living equipment and assistive technology with support from the tech team
- Assisting in the setup of befriending partnerships alongside the Volunteer Coordinator
- Connect, share, and learn with partners and other organisations
- Being a point of contact for MyVision within the North and West of Oxfordshire
Other duties:
- Provide talks and training as needed
- Support the Fundraising team with local events and initiatives
- Keep accurate records of interactions and activites
- Attend relevant meetings, training, workshops, and webinars
- Support the team with furthering the objectives and goals of the organisation
- Other reasonable duties set out by your line manager and Chief Executive
- There may, on occasion, be a need to work outside normal hours e.g., weekends and evenings
Breakdown of duties
This is a rough guide to your duties; flexibility will be required.
Tasks% of your timePeer Support Groups and Activities40%Info Days and Equipment Demos20%Befriending Support25%Other duties15%
Person Specification
NOTE: We expect candidates to evidence how they meet the criteria in their covering letter. This can be through work, volunteering, and your personal life.
Essential skills, experience, and knowledge:
- Experience of setting up community-based initiatives (for example: groups, clubs, activities etc)
- The ability to research, create and manage working relationships with local groups/organisations across Oxfordshire.
- Good IT skills
- Good communication skills in person, over the telephone and online
- The ability to travel around the county, whether with your own car, public transport or Access to Work support, please see below regarding Access to Work.
- Ideally located within or nearby Cherwell, West Oxfordshire, or Oxford city.
Desirable:
- Lived or learned experience of visual impairment
- Experience of working with visually impaired people
- Experience of providing community-based services for a disability charity
Personal Qualities
- The ability to work under own initiative
- Good communicator
- Creative thinker and problem solving
- A supportive team player
This role may suit someone with lived experience of sight loss, MyVision is a strong advocate of Lived Experience with over half of our employees having a visual impairment. The role would also suit someone who has strong communication skills and the ability to support, encourage and engage people. We also recognise many skills are transferrable and welcome applications from people with varying experiences and backgrounds.
Please evidence how you meet the person specifications in your covering letter.
The client requests no contact from agencies or media sales.
Actively Interviewing
This organisation is scheduling interviews as the applications come in. Don’t miss your opportunity, apply now!
About us:
Community ConneX is a campaigning organisation and a multi-project service provider working across West London. We support autistic people, people with a disability, and people and families experiencing barriers to live healthier, happier, and inclusive lives. We do this by ensuring their needs, rights and aspirations are met.
Advocacy 1st is a free, independent service provided by advocates who specialise in the Care Act, Mental Capacity Act and the Mental Health Act.
Location: Remote based in Oxfordshire
Key duties:
· Recruiting, training and providing ongoing support to volunteers
· Working with the children and young people to assess their service requirements
· Working with stakeholders to raise awareness and recognise and identify care leavers and young people in need of the Independent Visitors and Care Leavers service
· Looking at opportunities to engage and work with services to identify care leavers and independent visitors
· Reporting and discussing all safeguarding concerns with the service manager
· Completing initial assessments and matching volunteers to young people
· Raising the profile of the Independent Visitors and Care Leavers service
Our ideal candidate:
· Has qualifications relevant to the role
· Has experience of working with children and young people.
· Is aware of legislation such as Care Act 2014, Children and Families Act 2014, Children Act 1989, United Nations Convention on the Rights of the child (UNCRC)
· Has excellent communications and writing skills, and the ability to tailor written and verbal communications to a wide range of different audiences
· Can maintain existing relationships and develop new relationships with clients, families, colleagues and volunteers
· Can generate reports and make presentations
In return we offer a range of benefits including:
· Pension contribution up to 5%
· Death in service insurance
· Employee assistance programme
· Bluelight Card
· Cycle to work scheme
· 23 days of annual leave + bank holidays (increases after 2 years of service)
· Gym membership
· Healthcash plan
· Professional development
We are committed to safeguarding and equal opportunities, and we guarantee an interview to all applicants with disabilities meeting the minimum criteria for the post.
We also want to ensure that individuals with disabilities are provided reasonable facilities to participate in job applications or interviews to perform essential job functions. To support this, we are a Disability Confident committed employer.
The client requests no contact from agencies or media sales.
HMP Bullingdon, Oxfordshire
Ref SEF-242
Are you a dynamic and collaborative individual who wants to support people entering prison to gain the skills and tools to develop their emotional resilience? Looking for an exciting and highly rewarding new career opportunity?
If so, join St Giles as our Settling in Facilitator, where you will provide vital classroom sessions on emotional resilience to all new prison receptions and deliver tailored one-to-one support to people in prison who are not able to access the classroom sessions.
About St Giles
St Giles is an award-winning social justice charity using expertise and real-life past experiences to empower people who are not getting the help they need. People held back by poverty, exploited, abused, dealing with addiction or mental health problems, caught up in crime or a combination of these issues and others. We show people there is a way to build a better future for themselves and those they care about and help them create this through support, advice, and training. Our peer-led services form the backbone of our work, putting people with lived experience at the centre of delivery, design, and evaluation of support and services across the UK.
About this key role
As a Settling in Facilitator, you will be embedded within a prison-based setting and provide a quality service to people first entering prison. We will count on you to prepare, plan, and deliver the emotional resilience interactive sessions to individuals in prison, ensuring all sessions are appropriate and contextualised to reflect the local needs of the prison and its changing population and utilising expertise around lived experience and local knowledge to empower people in prison.
You will also be expected to deliver additional tailored sessions to individuals who are unable to attend the group sessions or require additional support and to use a trauma-informed approach to build trust and create a safe space for people in prison to explore challenging and potentially traumatic issues and topics.
What we are looking for
• Personal experience of the social care system; criminal justice system; or lived experience of the issues facing this client group. However, we also encourage applications from those without lived experience.
• The ability to build positive relationships with people in prison and be comfortable and confident working in the prison environment.
• A professionally competent approach and confidence facilitating group sessions, as well as being able to tailor the support given to meet the needs of people in prison.
• An invested interest in supporting people in prison to develop healthy coping strategies.
• Excellent interpersonal, relationship-building and communication skills, verbal and written.
What we will do to support you in this role
We will provide the following resources to assist in the successful achievement of the responsibilities outlined above:
• A full induction.
• On-going and targeted learning and development will support and enable you to deliver the role to a high standard.
• Continuous support and supervision including reflective practice to develop your learning and skills as a practitioner.
In return, you can expect a competitive salary, generous leave allowance, staff pension, flexible working, a mentoring programme, an advice and counselling service, 4x Group Life Insurance, season ticket loan, eyecare scheme and much more.
Due to the nature of this role, we are looking for male applicants only. The Equality Act 2010, Schedule 9, Part 1, Paragraph 1 applies to this post.
For further details on how to apply, click on the apply button.
Closing date: 02 June 2024 11:45pm.
We are actively reviewing applications week-to-week and encourage you to apply as soon possible.
As an equity and inclusive employer, we welcome all applications, but we would particularly welcome applications from Global Majority People (Black, Asian, Brown, Dual Heritage), those living with a disability, those from a neurodiverse group, or have another protected characteristic. We value the positive impact and diversity that your lived experience can bring to our organisation.
As an organisation that works with children and adults at risk we are committed to safeguarding, protecting and promoting the safety of our clients. Successful applicants must therefore submit an Enhanced Adult Workforce with Adult Barred List DBS DBS Check. Prison vetting is also a requirement for the role.