Stroke Association. Rebuilding lives after stroke.

When stroke strikes, part of your brain shuts down. And so does a part of you. That’s because a stroke happens in the brain, the control centre for who we are and what we can do. It happens every five minutes in the UK and changes lives instantly. Recovery is tough, but with the right specialist support and a ton of courage and determination, the brain can adapt.

We believe everyone deserves to live the best life they can after stroke. And it’s a team effort to get there.

We provide specialist support, fund critical research and campaign to make sure people affected by stroke get the very best care and support to rebuild their lives.

We’re working to improve the diversity of our team. Because we know that individuality leads to a richer experience for our people and better support for those affected by stroke.

We strongly encourage people from all backgrounds to apply. And we’re particularly looking to increase the number of applications from those with lived experience of stroke and those from under-represented communities.

Every five minutes, stroke destroys lives. Help us rebuild them and join our team.

We developed a bold new corporate strategy so that we can rebuild more lives after stroke and make a bigger difference to people’s lives.

To help us deliver our strategy and make a real difference, we are looking to recruit talented people to a number of roles.

If you would like to support stroke survivors to rebuild their lives, we want to hear from you!

We are looking for a Communications Officer to support our team in Scotland to respond to Scottish media enquiries, delivering campaigns to influence health policy and support our fundraising and engagement comms activity.

Reporting to the PR Manager, the role will help deliver key media campaigns that call for change to support people to rebuild their lives after stroke.

Key responsibilities will include:

• Working as a team to deliver a proactive, effective and 24/7 press office, building relationships with identified media and opinion formers, and ensure timely media responses based on organisational and reputational priorities.
• Working with the Campaigns and Public Affairs team to deliver influencing activity to key health board stakeholders, Stroke Association campaigners and the general public.
• Working with the Stories team to identify and deploy the real stories of the stroke survivors we work for.

You will have experience of:

• Generating media coverage in Scotland, ideally in the charity sector.
• Using media to deliver calls to action to the public (eg donating, fundraising, campaigning) and/or decision makers (eg policy change).
• Planning, executing and monitoring media plans against identified briefs and overarching objectives.
• Working alongside Policy and Public Affairs colleagues.
• Creating, posting, and managing social media content.
• Reputation management and working with crisis communications teams.
• Working with colleagues from across an organisation to identify media volunteers (case studies) and developing stories to deliver media coverage.

This role requires occasional travel across the UK to attend team days, conferences and researcher events. Candidates must be able to meet this requirement of the role.

To fulfil the role, you must be a resident of the UK and have the right to work in the UK.