We are looking for a motivated, creative, and organised Engagement and Communications Officer to join our team. This role is a unique opportunity for someone with a passion for building a fairer legal system through impactful events, engaging member outreach, and powerful communications. Working alongside the Director of Development and the Head of Communications, this role will work across teams to maintain and strengthen engagement through events, communications and corporate outreach. You will play an integral role in communicating our work as widely as possible and improving and increasing engagement with our supporters, including our members, donors and corporate partners.
The Engagement and Communications Officer will work to maximise income and support for JUSTICE through events (approximately 45% of the role), communications (approximately 30% of the role) and membership (approximately 25% of the role). They will report to the Director of Development and Head of Communications.
We want someone who can learn and grow in this role so if you don’t have every skill listed but are organised, motivated, and interested in our work then we want to hear from you.
The JUSTICE team currently work in a hybrid manner. Staff members have access to office space in London, however, attendance is currently optional. Our staff enjoy flexible working conditions, 27 days annual leave, plus the week between Christmas and the New Year, 8% employer pension contribution and access to an Employee Assistance Programme.
The application form and candidate pack are below. The candidate pack includes more information about this role including the person specification, the organisation and more details on how to apply.
The deadline for applications is 11pm on Sunday 19 May 2024. Please mark your email with ‘Engagement and Communications Officer’ in the subject line.
Interviews will be held on Monday 3 June 2024. Candidates will be required to complete a test as part of the interview process.
JUSTICE is an equal opportunities employer. We encourage applications from people of all backgrounds, but particularly welcome applications from individuals from marginalised groups, those with lived experience of the justice system, as well as those underrepresented in the legal professional including women, people of colour, trans and non-binary people, and disabled people.
Please note that we will not respond to any enquiries from recruitment agencies.
The client requests no contact from agencies or media sales.
You'll develop and strengthen our work with children within our passionate, inclusive and diverse faith community, particularly but not exclusively within our Sunday gatherings.
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One Church Brighton is quite an unusual church! We are messy, organic and entrepreneurial; we have a variety of projects all trying to tackle social justice issues; and we seek to encourage people to get involved with issues that they are passionate about, rather than directing the agenda from ‘the top’. We have a wonderfully eclectic worshipping church community who appreciate the space to ask awkward questions and embrace different views. We are known for expressing an inclusive theology - if you are not open to embracing and welcoming people of different sexualities, different beliefs, different attitudes and behaviours you will find it very hard to work for One Church. If however this is the kind of thinking that thrills you, then you’ll find a wonderfully affirming community who are genuinely trying to build God’s kingdom here in Brighton.
The outcome of this theological thinking has shaped a set of values that we believe in wholeheartedly and shape all that we do as a church. These values are:
Intimacy with God
Involvement in the world
Interdependence with one another
Inclusion of everyone
and Integrity in all we do.
We are hoping to find a very special person to join in the journey of One Church, helping us to develop our children’s work so all in our church family are equipped and nurtured to live out the ethos and values of our faith as we follow Christ. Specifically, we want someone who translates all that’s good about One Church and communicates and embodies that to the younger generation who call this church their home. Working alongside the Associate Minister, we want someone to share the overall responsibility for the spiritual health and discipleship of our children’s work. You will be passionate about children, and also able to encourage other people to engage with and nurture this generation in their expression of faith.
Key responsibilities
To work alongside the Associate Minister and Youth Worker to ensure that strong, proactive pastoral care exists across the children and youth by coordinating and delivering a high-quality children’s (0-11) programme on Sundays and beyond.
Whilst supporting a great team of volunteers you will oversee and nurture the children’s work across One Church including the development of age appropriate curriculum to be used on Sundays. As a Church that openly questions, we want to encourage this ethos across the whole family and especially our children and young people. Therefore, you must have a real heart for children and their spiritual formation and be comfortable chatting with them, as well as their parents, about their faith and experiences of God, giving them a real sense of belonging within the wider church family.
The linking of our children’s work and the teaching themes on Sunday aim to ensure we always reflect our key values so they make sense in the real world. You will lead this work through our Sunday children’s groups – Buds (pre school), Saplings (school years r-2) and Forest (school years 3-6) – as well as supporting children’s activities in our wider church events such as the church weekend away.
Sunday children’s work development.
To nurture our children on their faith journey, in a way that reflects the values and ethos of One Church. In practise, this will involve:
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Organising great kids work content that is dynamic, creative and inclusive, and that enables every child to make sense of faith in the real world.
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Pulling together a curriculum of content that helps the kids grow in, question, and express faith. This will involve drawing on external resources where helpful, but also developing resources where there aren’t suitable children’s group work curricula available.
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Ensuring that our church space is a suitably equipped, bright, attractive place that is child friendly and accessible for everyone including those with additional needs.
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Being creative and thinking ‘outside the box’ about what kids work in a church should be - we don’t want to be bound by the way things have always been done.
Discipleship and community outside of Sundays.
We have a wonderful group of children, and our heart is to provide more spaces for them to grow in love, community and discipleship together beyond Sunday mornings. This might look like meeting up to fly kites together, forming some regular Journey Groups or mentoring relationships to do life and faith in meaningful ways, taking trips to Rock Farm (our therapeutic smallholding in West Sussex) to get some dirt under their nails, or alternatively just getting together to watch a movie and paint their nails! Whatever it looks like, we believe that a life of faith is a life best done together, and we want our kids to have that sense of being a part of a family in which they are completely welcome to be themselves, to bring their faith and their questions, and to see the whole of life as a part of their spiritual journey.
We are particularly keen to invest in our Key Stage 2 group as they transition to become part of our youth work. We also encourage collaboration with our Youth Group and joint sessions to explore and develop mentorship opportunities across the age groups. You, alongside the Youth Worker will be responsible for how this comes together to develop a strong pathway between the groups.
Supporting families.
Parenting is rarely a walk in the park, and helping kids find their feet in faith can be tricky at the best of times. To add to this, though, many of the parents and carers in our church are asking questions around what it looks like to support our kids in faith when their own understanding of God and the Bible is often uncertain and full of more questions than answers! How do we pass on the great bits of our faith without some of the more problematic baggage that often comes along with it? This isn’t an easy question and it’s not one that you’ll come sailing in with an answer to, but it is one that you’ll need to be able to engage with with as you spend time carefully listening to, and encouraging our children and their parents.
Volunteer Recruitment and Support.
Recruiting, training and developing volunteers is absolutely essential to this role! Without a team of inspired and enthusiastic volunteers your job will be impossible. Working out strategies, communicating with passion and vision and following people up in informal and fun ways are key to getting people to volunteer and you’ll need to invest well in this task for the success of the children’s work for One Church. You’ll
hold regular meetings with your team of volunteers to provide support and motivation, with help from our Volunteer Coordinator, Head of Operations and Associate Minister.
Communication.
We need to tell others about all that is happening in the life of our children’s work! Part of this role will be communicating with parents and the wider church family about how One Church is equipping and nurturing their children through their spiritual journey and Christian faith. Alongside one to one chats, this will also involve the ability to inspire through ‘up-front’ verbal communication in a variety of settings including children’s talks/activities on Sundays, as well as web-based and printed communications.
Administration.
Self-organisation, good time-keeping and an attention to detail will be key. The coordination and support of a rota and clear plan for our children’s work is crucial. The better our children’s work is organised, the easier it’ll be for parents and volunteers to be engaged and to feel supported.
Safeguarding.
This role will, with support from the Associate Minister and the Safeguarding team, be responsible for ensuring good practices around child-protection and safeguarding as well as the health and safety of our kids and team.
Team Work.
We have a diverse and broad staff team, your role will sit within the Sundays and Church Community Team (Minister, Associate Minister, Development and Wellbeing facilitator and Youth Worker). You will need to be good at, and committed to, working with others. This might be quite intensive times of working one-on-one with a colleague or it might be simply being aware of the work of another team, but either way your role will help foster a strong sense of togetherness and a supportive culture where nobody’s work is more important than anyone else’s. You’ll also be a part of our weekly wider staff meeting.
Kids work in the community.
We’ve always dreamed of increasing our kids work to benefit more people in our local area and across the city, whether that’s by exploring options to support struggling children in local schools, meeting and building relationship with families that use our café, supporting the work of Chomp, or any initiative that helps families at their point of need. This might be tricky to fit into 16 hours a week, but funding dependent, we’d be really open to expanding the role to include this area of work.
Official bits.
Benefits
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5% pension on qualifying earnings
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Development of the post holder towards their full potential
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An annual retreat will be encouraged and paid for by One Church
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25 days holiday, plus bank holidays (on a pro rata basis)
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The chance to be part of a fun and energetic team.
One Church reserves the right to vary or amend the duties and responsibilities of the post holder at any time according to the needs of the church.
The client requests no contact from agencies or media sales.
We are looking for a Communications and Engagement Officer with at least two years of relevant experience, who will be able to contribute to our new VCS Capacity Building contract.
Having a good level of experience in producing and designing communications content, excellent copy writing skills with the ability to create clear and compelling content, excellent attention to detail and a strong track record in developing communications which stand out and increase both engagement and awareness.
Someone who enjoys working with the local community and able to use their communication and engagement skills to ensure we are reaching all parts of the VCS community within the Borough of Haringey. Having knowledge of the VCS within Haringey would be an advantage, but not essential.
You’ll have strong digital skills, including Adobe Creative Cloud (or at least InDesign), website CMS, social media and Microsoft O365, with an interest in learning and developing your skills on the job.
The role
MIND in Haringey and its partner Public Voice delivers the Voluntary and Community (VCS) Capacity Building contract commissioned by the London Borough of Haringey. The contract, which runs from May 2024 to April 2027 can be extended for a further four years at the discretion of the Client. The Contract includes the administration and management of the Volunteer Centre and the development and promotion of a Navigation Network (NavNet) knowledge sharing platform, META Workplace.
The Community Collaborative team will be located across different sectors of the Borough employed by either MIND in Haringey or Public Voice who make up the consortium partners. Day-to-day management of the Community Collaborative service is the responsibility of the Haringey Community Collaborative Manager.
We translate the insights and needs of people into actions to improve public services, leading to reduced inequalities and improved outcomes.
The client requests no contact from agencies or media sales.