Location: The designated office base is Abbey House, Abingdon. The councils operate in a truly flexible, and hybrid way where the focus is on outcomes not where you work.
Salary and grade: £36,032 to £42,576 (FTE) per year, Grade 5
Duration of role: Fixed term contract for 1 year
Hours per week: Part time, 18.5 per week

Closing Date: 13th May 2024
Interview date: Week commencing 20th May 2024

About the role and what we’re looking for

About Us

Our Garden Communities service delivers an ambitious development programme to help transform and create attractive and sustainable new neighbourhoods and communities in South Oxfordshire (Berinsfield Garden Village and Didcot Garden Town) and Vale of the White Horse (Dalton Barracks Garden Village)

Job purpose

The Community Health Development Officer will join the Berinsfield Garden Village team to help implement the Berinsfield Healthy Placeshaping project, which strives to build thriving, sustainable communities where healthy behaviours are the norm and that foster a sense of identity, community, and belonging.

We are seeking an individual with a strong interest in health and community work who can apply a compassionate and perceptive community-based approach to promote health and wellness, disseminate health-related messages, and lead health-promoting activities to build social capital and resilience in Berinsfield, in keeping with the themes found in the Berinsfield Health and Wellbeing Community Profile.

Main duties and responsibilities:

• To use the profile to collaborate with the community and wider partners to find solutions to reduce the health inequalities identified in the area.
• To take forward and help implement recommendations from the community profile and action plan.
• To collaborate with residents and groups, sign posting them to sources of information and activities and referring them for support where appropriate.
• To proactively seek opportunities to connect organisations, develop partnerships and encourage collaborative working through community-based partnerships.
• To build confidence and skills in the community and encourage community activation to be able to develop community health and wellbeing services, activities, and events themselves that reduce the identified health inequalities.
• To encourage two-way communication between community members and statutory partnerships
• To work with Public Health colleagues to coordinate local meetings and improve awareness of health promotion activities using effective communication campaigns.
• To support local research/insight work
• To collaborate with social prescribers, linking them up with the local community offer
• To help reduce the need of patients using GP surgeries by collaborating with Social Prescribers to identify patients who can be signposted to health and wellbeing activities.
• To provide a voice to the community around their lived experience of health inequalities.
• To understand barriers to accessing services and health enabling activities, create opportunities for dialogue with the community about this and work with them to find ways to overcome any identified barriers.
• To engage with disadvantaged and vulnerable groups; specifically, those with poorer health outcomes, to improve their access to health and wellbeing services and provision.
• Communicate effectively with all members of the team to ensure a strong culture of partnership working and collaboration across the Council.
• Engage with the County wide network of Community Health Development Officers.

About you

Your essential skills, knowledge, and experience

• A proven track record of working with disadvantaged communities.
• Excellent written and verbal communication skills with different audiences.
• Experience of planning, delivering, and evaluating projects, activities, and events.
• Knowledge of the common health related issues affecting communities
• Demonstrable commitment to equality, diversity, and inclusion.
• Ability to engage with and develop the confidence and skills of community groups and residents to enable them to make change happen themselves.
• High level of numeracy and literacy skills.
• Experience in successful partnership working.
• Collaborating with people in community groups or community environment.
• Skills in consultation and engagement techniques.
• A good understanding of the barriers people may experience to access health and wellbeing services.

Your essential qualifications

• Educated to degree level or equivalent, or equivalent level of experience.

The benefits we offer:

• A basic 25 day annual leave per annum, rising to 30 days after five years. You also have all the bank holidays to look forward to and time off between Christmas and New Year.
• Flexible working and annualised hours – a flexible approach to work that our employees love!
• Salary pay awards – most jobs give scope for a pay increase after six months or the following April (depending on your start date) and we also review salaries each April.
• A generous career average pension scheme which includes life insurance of three times your salary
• The opportunity to purchase a bike through Cyclescheme (cheaper than directly through a store) so that you can cycle to work!
• Various schemes to keep you healthy (reduced gym membership, free swims, free eye tests for DSE users and more)
• We give you two days per year to volunteer within the local community.
• A range of resources, support, and activities to help you maintain your wellbeing including a monthly wellbeing hour in addition to annualised hours (the ability to work flexibly as long as, over the course of the year, you complete your contracted hours) and annual leave.

We look forward to hearing from you.

You may also have experience in the following: Community Support Manager, Community project management, Community Development Manager, Garden Projects, Community Liaison Officer, Resident Support Manager, Green Space project manager, etc.

REF-213 469