SUSSEX COMMUNITY DEVELOPMENT ASSOCIATION

Job Description:

Information Hub Development Lead

Reporting to: Advice InclusionServices Programme Manager

Work pattern: Part-time 30 hrs per week

Based: Newhaven, with regular travel to outreach and other delivery venues across the Lewes District.

Salary: £23,541 - £27,041 per annum pro rata

(Actual: £19,088 - £21,925 per annum pro rata)

The Organisation

In December 2013 Newhaven Community Development Association (NCDA) changed its name to Sussex Community Development Association, to better reflect its work.

NCDA was founded in 1997. Its main aim was to develop sustainable community-based regeneration initiatives addressing the economic, environmental, and cultural and community needs of Newhaven, particularly addressing the needs of those most vulnerable in the community.

SCDA runs a range of projects aimed at supporting the involvement of the whole of the community. Funding has been secured from a range of sources including European, Lottery and charitable trusts as well as contracts to deliver services and run projects in Newhaven and elsewhere in East Sussex. These include:

Employability – supporting unemployed people across East Sussex, specialising in those who find it hardest to find and sustain paid work.

Advice & Information Services - offering access to a range of specialist advice provision through partners, and signposting and information services via Community Navigators and a pool of trained volunteers.

Inclusion – delivering a variety of services aimed at promoting inclusion for BME communities and supporting people at risk of anti-social behaviour and hate crime.

Health & Wellbeing – delivering a range of services around food; green and open spaces; promoting physical activity and mental health and wellbeing in the community.

Community Development – delivering targeted and general Youth provision locally; raising the profile of communities in which we work through regular community events; offering a suite of Family Learning and Inclusion activities for parents and carers of Under 5’s. We also manage Denton Island Nursery which Ofsted has registered as ‘Outstanding’.

Care & Support – SCDA’s newest work area which offers high quality day care, activities and other services for older people both referred via East Sussex County Council Adult Social Care and self-referred.

SCDA has a strong track record in partnership working and in the quality of service delivery to meet the needs of the most vulnerable in the community: helping the community help itself.

The context of the job

The organisation, though fairly small in terms of staff with approximately 140 employees, continues to grow - especially geographically. SCDA values teamwork and supporting colleagues and expects all members of staff to demonstrate flexibility within their specified job role, and offer support to other team members as and when required.

Job Purpose

The purpose of the role of Information Hub Development Leadis the day to day co-ordination and delivery of high quality and timely specialist adviceincluding Debt, Housing, Welfare Benefits and other servicesto the local community through a range of partners, as well as via internal delivery. The post holder is responsible for the supervision of a multi disciplinary team, including volunteers and paid employees.

The Information Hub Development Leadis responsible for the promotion, delivery and tracking of this specialist advice to local community members who have multiple and complex issues.Thepostco-ordinates the delivery of adviceto members of the community, who often lack skills to identify problems, who are unaware of services available to assist them, and who may lack confidence to present themselves even when referred.

With responsibility for assisting in reporting to funders and management, this post also contributes to ongoing fundraising for future service sustainability.

Main Tasks

Responsibilities

  • Ensurethe delivery of high quality, coordinated and specialist advice on a range of services including welfare benefits, housing and debtamongst others to meet the needs of the most disadvantaged members of the community
  • Provide support, supervision and directionto a team of volunteers and paid staff
  • Ensure monitoring documentation is in place to record and track the numbers of people using the services and the outcomes of the advice given
  • Ensure evidence base and tracking mechanisms are created and utilised to address contact and accessing of ‘hard to reach’ communities
  • Review, assess and adapt the service to ensure the provision is engaging with difficult to reach parts of the community, such as BME, disabled, older people, gypsies and travellers in the best and most appropriate ways
  • Identify, adapt and create strategies and delivery to ensure that the service provision is engaging with specific communities and rural areas, which are currently not well served by advice provision
  • Assist in the development of appropriate project monitoring tools
  • Oversee the creation of an asset sharing opportunities database
  • Ensure staff are trained on both the above tools
  • Continually establish a variety of methods of self help and support help mechanisms
  • Regular contribution to the evaluation process
  • Project reporting to Advice and Inclusion Programme Manager, Senior Management Team and Funders
  • Safeguarding support to staff team and volunteers
  • Contribution to funding tenders and identification of potential funding.

Publicity and Partnerships

  • Be responsible for the promotion and marketing of the services, ensuring awareness is high within the Havens area for the Advice Hub
  • Ensure promotional material is distributed throughout providers of other services such as GP surgeries, Job Centre Plus and Community Centres
  • Working with the team, Adult Social Services and other voluntary sector providers ensure the service is advertised across Lewes District as appropriate
  • Oversee informal and formal partnership including arranging regular meetings and briefings to update partners, and supervision of partners achievement to targets
  • Promotion of the service internally and externally to ensure robust referral pathways are established and utilized.
  • Ensure groups that support under represented individuals are proactively targeted for publicity to ensure accessibility for all.
  • With Programme Manager, manage and facilitate an active Steering Group of partners and stakeholders, to, amongst other things, externally verify the project.

Service Provision

  • Ensure the Advice & Information Hub premises are staffed appropriately for the core opening hours and that telephone and drop in services are available
  • Ensure a comprehensive portfolio of services is available from these venues
  • Ensure a smooth client journey through services via a systematic and high quality approach to problem identification and referral.

Line Management and other support functions

  • Line management and supervision for Community Navigators, Volunteer Coordinator and Project Assistant as well as some day to day supervision for the CAB Generalist Adviser (who is employed by an external partner – Lewes CAB)
  • Provide support to the Community Navigators, who work in an outreach capacity to ensure smooth flow of referrals into and out of the serviceand provide caseload review
  • Day to day operational safeguarding lead within the service
  • Support the Volunteer Coordinator to establish a joint programme of training with CAB
  • Create reports and liaisewithrelevant external partner organisations to monitor agreed project outputs
  • Attend relevant steering meetings and training with partners as necessary
  • Keep accurate records, provide written and statistical reports as required, develop and maintain appropriate administrative and recording systems.

Other:

  • Meet regularly with the Advice InclusionServices Programme Managerfor supervision and project reviews and take responsibility to follow through agreed areas of work
  • Attend team briefs, full staff training events and Partnership Forums as appropriate
  • Promote and comply with SCDA’s policies and procedural requirements.
(i)EQUAL OPPORTUNITIES

Sussex Community Development Association is working towards equality and has policies relating to the equality of opportunity in employment and service delivery. All staff is expected to comply with these policies.

(ii)HEALTH AND SAFETY

All staff has responsibility to maintain the health and safety of themselves and others within the performance of their duties in accordance with SCDA health and safety policies and to undertake specific health and safety responsibilities as necessary.

This job description sets out the duties of the post at the time it was drawn up. Such duties may vary from time to time without changing the general character of the duties or the level of responsibility entailed. Such variations cannot in themselves justify a reconsideration of the grading of this post.

Person specification

Essential:

  • Experience of line-managing and supervising staff and/or volunteers

Previous experience of working with community members who have multiple and complicated issues

Some experience working with clients giving specialist advice or working within an advice setting

Proven track record of community development work/developing services

Able to create and maintain records for clients and monitor progress – ideally using a database

  • Able to negotiate with influence at all levels
  • Able to deliver tasks to specified deadlines and to a high quality
  • Able to compile, write and coordinate reports to funders and Managers
  • Professionally aware of the boundaries required by the role at all times
  • Excellent organisational and record keeping skills
  • Ability to build and maintain working relationships with partners
  • Ability to gain a rapid understanding ofAdvice & Information Services within SCDA and promote the organisations aims in a positive manner.

Desirable qualifications & experience:

  • Appropriate professional qualification or degree or equivalent
  • Up to date knowledge of Debt, Welfare Benefits and Housing Services
  • Up to date Safeguarding knowledge and understanding referral routes
  • Experience of working in an outreach capacity
  • Experience of lone working policies and practice
  • Experience of multi tasking and multi project working.
  • Experience of fundraising and bid writing

Essential skills, abilities and knowledge:

  • A flexible approach to coordinating services to meet client need
  • Ability to work with minimal supervision but as part of a team
  • Good understanding of data protection rules & clear understanding of client confidentiality
  • Experienced and skilled with MS computer systems.

Essential personal qualities:

  • Tact, diplomacy and resilience to withstand peaks in workload
  • Emotional resilience to work objectively and professionally with vulnerable people with complex problems
  • Understanding of or willingness to learn about the needs of a wide range of socially excluded people.

Circumstances:

  • Able to travel in and around the East Sussex area easily and economically
  • Able to undergo DBS and health checks as required.

Information Hub Development LeadSeptember 2017