Are you passionate about changing lives and seeing communities transformed?
As Five Towns Christian Fellowship's Community Connector, you will be the heartbeat of a vital initiative driven by the Building Healthy and Sustainable Communities (BHSC) project. Your mission is to actively reduce health inequalities and improve wellbeing for people of all ages across Whitwood and Cutsyke.
Taking a holistic approach, you will serve the whole community, acting as a visible, trusted, and energetic link between residents, local assets, and statutory services. If you are a great communicator with love working with people, have a knack for building relationships, and the drive to meet people exactly where they are, this role is for you.
Key Responsibilities
- Build Relationships: Act as a vibrant, visible presence in the community. Cultivate trusted relationships with residents, particularly those facing disadvantage, using people skills to engage everyone from youth to older adults.
- Coordinate Outreach: Design, coordinate, and help deliver creative outreach activities (including Pantry sessions, youth work, community gardens, and wellbeing events) to bring people together.
- Be a 'Holistic' Connector: Provide clear, hands-on support to residents. This isn’t just about handing out a leaflet—it involves 'hand-holding,' mentoring, and confidently referring or guiding individuals into the health, wellbeing, and social services they need.
- Identify Barriers & Solutions: Proactively identify the hidden barriers residents face when trying to access support, and work creatively to break those barriers down.
- Map Local Resources: Know your patch inside and out. Continually identify, map, and utilise local resources and opportunities to maximise community benefit.
- Steering Group Leadership: Act as a key member of the project’s steering group, ensuring grassroots insights directly shape strategic decisions.
- Collaborate & Co-produce: Work hand-in-hand with statutory, voluntary, and community partners. Ensure the authentic voice of the community drives the co-production and design of local services.
- Data & Safeguarding: Collect meaningful data to showcase the impact of your work, write progress reports, and strictly uphold safeguarding and organisational policies.
Person Specification
Essential Criteria
- Outgoing & Creative Spark: A natural, enthusiastic communicator who loves meeting new people, building authentic relationships, and finding creative solutions to local challenges.
- Stakeholder Collaboration: Ability to work collaboratively with a diverse stakeholder group to identify and voice local needs.
- Local Connection: A strong connection to, and/or knowledge of, the Whitwood/Cutsyke and surrounding local areas.
- Flexible Working: A flexible approach to hours and tasks to meet the dynamic, evolving needs of a community-focused role.
- Experience: Proven experience of working on, delivering, or volunteering within community-focused projects or grassroots settings.
- Core Skills: Strong understanding of health inequalities, excellent organisational skills, and a self-motivated, adaptable mindset.
Key Requirements
- Mobility: A full, clean driving license and access to a vehicle. This role requires regular travel across the community, and further, to meet people where they are.
- Vetting: Enhanced DBS checks will be required prior to formal appointment.
- Tech Savvy: IT Literate and confident using Microsoft Office (Word, Excel, Outlook), email, and basic data collection/monitoring tools.
Desirable Criteria - Lived Experience: Personal lived experience of overcoming barriers or living within a similar community, using your own journey to inspire and connect with others.
- Qualifications: Relevant qualifications in youth work, social care, community development, or a related field.
- Community Impact: A proven track record of working directly with grassroots communities to successfully reduce health inequalities
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