About the role
For more information or to chat about this opportunity please contact Liz Morris, Communities Service Manager North - liz.morris@cambridgeshire.gov.uk or 07775 818252
Do you believe in community driven change? Are you a great communicator, facilitator and collaborator?
Community Connectors will start conversations, identifying members of the community with drive, enthusiasm, and local knowledge. They bring people together, empower communities to initiate activities that people want to participate in and help grow community leaders and champions by offering support and providing a key connection to the voluntary, Community and Statutory sector partners that specialise in these fields.
This is an exciting opportunity to work with community groups and other key stakeholders, to promote community activity, community voice, participation and volunteering, integration and reduce inequalities in line with the Cambridgeshire County Councils 7 ambitions: Business Plan 2023 to 2024 - Cambridgeshire County Council
Community Connectors spend significant time in communities, but they also need to be creative and flexible, including an ability to work on-line and from home. You may be required to work evenings and weekends to maximise engagement and reach and to participate in and attend community events and activities. You must be able to travel independently around the Huntingdonshire area and to other areas of the County to work with other connectors and wider service colleagues. A commitment to Safeguarding practices and a sound understanding of Equality Diversity and Inclusion practices is essential to this role which is subject to an enhanced DBS.
This is a permanent full-time role in the Hunts place-based team which sits as part of the Communities Service. The role will be managed by the Community Coordinator leading on adult services.
What will you be doing?
You will offer support to your place-based Coordinators with stakeholder engagement and relationship management at Community and District level in order to meet objectives around Children Young People, Families, Adults and Communities. This may include the delivery of training and information sessions, supporting communities to develop social action, gathering community insights to inform themes, projects or priorities or to support community resilience.
Community Connectors support their teams to build partnerships and frameworks and use community development skills to enable the community voluntary sector to play a key role in meeting the ambitions of the council, including through the Early Help strategy and Care Together Adult Social Care programme, building a thriving voluntary and community sector that offers a wide range of positive activities and support networks.
About you
We are looking for someone with tenacity, drive, flexibility, and resilience. This is an exciting role that requires a self-motivated individual to travel independently across the district engaging with new and existing community, voluntary and statutory sector partners. A sound understanding of Asset Based Community Development will support the successful applicant to support Community driven and sustainable change that addresses the needs of communities and champions the issues they face.
You will need good communication skills, experience of working with community groups, and the ability to map and research the Huntingdonshire area. You will also need good IT skills with the ability to collect data, complete forms and write reports. You will also be able to support community groups to explore and positively develop their governance, safeguarding and sustainability potential. The appropriate candidate will demonstrate an awareness and understanding of equality, diversity, inclusion and anti-oppressive practice and be able to actively promote equality of opportunity within the role.
There will be training available and the opportunity to learn alongside your Coordinators, however strong collaboration and influencing skills and the ability to advocate for the county council’s priorities and work as a multi-agency team is at the core of this role.
Experience of working with and engaging communities is essential as is a knowledge of effective partnership working techniques at multiple levels including an understanding of the organisational structures of public, private and voluntary sector
Our benefits
We value our colleagues in Cambridgeshire County Council and have developed a number of benefits:
- Flexible working
- Flexible Bank Holidays
- A comprehensive wellbeing package
- Our Cambs Rewards employee discounts
- A comprehensive pension scheme
- IDEAL staff equality, diversity and inclusion network.
- Camweb our staff intranet helping to keep you informed
- An employee recognition scheme
About us
Cambridgeshire is a great place to work and live with a diverse population, an urban centre in Cambridge, historic Isle of Ely, Huntingdon and St Ives as well as more rural landscapes.
Our four values are central to our culture, driving everything we do.
We are proud to serve the diverse communities of Cambridgeshire and want our workforce to be reflective of this diversity, which we firmly believe benefits our colleagues, the organisation and our communities. If you don’t meet every single requirement in the job role but think this could be you, please don’t be put off. We are committed to building a workplace that is compassionate and inclusive as well as diverse, so if you think you could be a good candidate for this role please consider applying and speak to the recruiting manager if you have any questions.
Our Equality, Diversity and Inclusion Strategy, along with our employee network 'IDEAL' and self-organised peer support groups help us to foster an inclusive, supportive and safe working environment where people feel valued, respected, and empowered. We collect relevant diversity data for monitoring as part of the recruitment process to understand the diversity of our applicants and monitor any trends throughout the recruitment processes so that we can take meaningful action.
We are proud to be a Disability Confident Employer. We fully support providing reasonable adjustments throughout our recruitment process, as well as when you join us, and we encourage candidates to contact the Hiring Manager, whose details can be found in the advert, to discuss any adjustment needs. Some examples of adjustments could include additional time to complete an assessment or printing a document on pastel coloured paper with larger font size and line spacing. We would value talking about what might be possible to enable you to join us and thrive, so if there is something that would help you to do your best during your journey with us, please get in touch.
Visit our jobs and careers section to find out more about our wide range of learning and development opportunities; apprenticeships; our wellbeing package; staff benefits; our commitment to equality, diversity and Inclusion.
Attached documents
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