Freedom from Torture is the Winner of the Overall Award for Excellence and the top prize for Campaigns and Advocacy at the 2023 Charity Awards.

We have an exciting opportunity for a Scotland-based Legal Advisor to join our Legal Advice and Welfare Service.

Would you like to join our award-winning organisation?

About the role

Legal Advisers at Freedom from Torture deliver expert, detailed, advice to treatment clients and their clinicians on all areas of asylum and immigration law. There is a particular focus on complex, appeals rights exhausted cases where there is a risk of detention, and on supporting clients who are unrepresented. Legal Advisors review evidence produced by clinicians for use in clients’ asylum and immigration cases, ensuring that it complies with the standards required of a professional witness. Legal Advisors are also responsible for delivering internal and external training on a range of legal issues affecting torture survivors within the immigration and asylum system in the UK.

We are seeking to recruit a Legal Advisor for our Glasgow centre, who is a Scottish qualified legal professional with experience of advising on immigration and asylum matters within the Scottish legal system, and who could attend our Glasgow centre at least once every fortnight.

About you

You will be a legal professional qualified to practice in Scotland, with expertise in immigration and asylum law, particularly in relation to the legal protections available to survivors of torture. You will have experience of advising and representing clients in the Tribunals and Courts, including in judicial review claims. You will be able to communicate effectively and sensitively with people who have experienced trauma, and will be able to build professional relationships with a variety of colleagues both internally and externally. You will share our commitment to working with and empowering people who have experienced torture.

In return, we offer a competitive package, with a generous 30-day annual leave entitlement, and 6% employer pension contribution (minimum 1% employee contribution).

Freedom from Torture is committed to showing the salary for all advertised roles and not negotiating salaries for roles, in light of evidence that this contributes to structural inequality.

Our policy is that all appointments will be at the start of the salary range but successful candidates will have the opportunity to move up the scale over time. The progression up the salary range is reviewed on an annual basis and subject to affordability. For this role, the salary range is £47,655 - £55,279 pro rata per annum.

View the Job Description and Person Specification

Please note a CV and a cover letter addressing the job description and person specification of the role are mandatory to be considered for the position.

Freedom from Torture is dedicated to healing and protecting people who have survived torture. We provide therapies to improve physical and mental health, we medically document torture, and we provide legal and welfare help. We expose torture globally, we fight to hold torturing states to account and we campaign for fairer treatment of torture survivors in the UK.

We campaign for national and global change, using evidence from our services and survivor voices to protect and promote survivors' rights and hold torturing states to account. We are proud to play a significant role in the global anti-torture movement. Survivors, active and empowered, are at the centre of all of our work.

Freedom from Torture is committed to its responsibilities under safeguarding, and expects all staff and volunteers to share this commitment. This post is subject to a satisfactory enhanced DBS disclosure, as well as a need for full employment history and up to date employment references.

This post is subject to the Rehabilitation of Offenders Act (Exceptions Order) 1975 and as such it will be necessary for a submission for Disclosure to be made to the Disclosure and Barring Service (formerly known as CRB) to check for any previous criminal convictions.

Dementia Friendly East Lothian is committed to supporting people living with dementia and unpaid carers to have connected and meaningful lives; to exercise their rights, have choices and be respected and valued citizens.

What we do is determined by people living with dementia and unpaid carers with a focus on peer led support, dementia enabled communities and coming together as a community to share ideas and influence the things we care about. Our work led to the establishment of the Musselburgh Meeting Centre which we opened in April 2023. We are developing the Meeting Centre approach across East Lothian as part of the East Lothian Dementia Strategy. Musselburgh Meeting Centre is a ‘hub’ with an important role as a resource for practice and learning.

About the job:

The Development and Communications facilitator is a new post and will play an essential role in developing the Meeting Centre approach across East Lothian.

We are looking for a motivated person who supports our values and approach to join our small and enthusiastic team and to develop the Meeting Centre approach.

You will work in partnership with experts by experience, the Musselburgh Meeting Centre Team and community partners and services to support communities to develop the Meeting Centre approach, facilitate a vibrant and inclusive community of learning and practice. Communicating and connecting people, ideas and practice is a key part of the role in East Lothian and working closely with Meeting Centres Scotland to connect with Centres across Scotland.

You will:

• Work with the Meeting Centre Team to ensure Members and Friends are fully involved in co-producing our work, as leaders and experts by experience

• Work with communities to support local initiatives

• Organise and deliver DFEL Gatherings, workshops, social media, blogs and newsletters

• Support Musselburgh Meeting Centre events and comms, including community days and fund-raising events

• Provide information and analysis and support the evaluation strategy for DFEL to demonstrate our impact and value

• Share and draw on learning and practice from the Musselburgh Meeting Centre and Meeting Centres Scotland and UK

About you:

You will share our vision and have the enthusiasm and commitment to work with us to make our aspirations a reality. You will be a ‘people person’, with excellent communication skills working with diverse groups and face to face and using a range of media and channels. You will have experience of promoting opportunities for people and groups to share ideas, practice and learning. Ideally you will have experience of coproduction. You will be flexible, adaptable and enjoy being part of a team and working in a new and evolving area.

We positively welcome applications from people living with dementia and unpaid carers/supporters and people with a wide range of experience, relevant to the requirements of the job.

We would like you to draw on all your skills and experience, including those gained through self-management and living with dementia or another long-term condition, unpaid work, paid work, volunteering and your personal life. Ideally this experience is round dementia, but we know that there are many similarities with living with and supporting other long-term conditions.

There are no essential qualifications for the post, you must demonstrate you have the essential skills. Training is required for the successful applicant, and it is a condition of your probation that you develop the levels of competence required over your probation period. We will provide training, mentoring and support to the successful applicant and this can be undertaken paid and in work time.

About Dementia Friendly East Lothian CIC:

Dementia Friendly East Lothian is a social enterprise focused round changing lives and communities. Our approach is inspired and fueled by the power of people with lived experience to lead and influence decisions that matter to them and the important role of communities in helping people stay connected and manage living with dementia. Our work is led by people with dementia and care-partners.

As a community-led social enterprise, started by an unpaid carer, we work in ways that build personal and community capacity and assets. We believe we will go further together and that how we work is a measure of our success and value. Change happens when people coming together to talk, share and plan through community conversations, peer led support and Gatherings. You can read how we got here on our website: dfel.org.uk