Carers of East Lothian is the local organisation supporting adults who care for family and friends. We have an excellent reputation, recently gaining recognition through the Carers Trust ‘Excellence for Carers’ Award and have recently secured the contract to deliver adult carer services across East Lothian for an initial two-year period and a total period of up to six years, to 2031. We are a Carer Positive Exemplary employer, as well as being Disability Confident Committed and a Living Wage employer.

Key Responsibilities:

• Act as the first point of contact for carers and professionals, handling enquiries and referrals with sensitivity and confidentiality.

• Maintain accurate client records, manage referrals, and arrange clinic appointments (e.g. Legal Advice, Power of Attorney).

• Provide admin support for carer events and workshops, process small grants, and update financial records.

• Support reception area upkeep, office supplies, and general admin tasks including mailings, info packs, and Board support.

• Assist the wider team and volunteers while ensuring compliance with data protection and health & safety policies.

What We’re Looking For:

• Experience in reception or office admin

• Great communication and interpersonal skills

• Good IT skills and attention to detail

• A team player with a commitment to supporting unpaid carers

Kibble is a specialist provider of services for at risk children and young people across the UK. Many of the young people the charity cares for have experienced significant trauma in their lives and we provide a safe, stable environment that is both nurturing and therapeutic. With a robust support network and wide range of integrated services, we offer young people opportunities and encourage them to believe in themselves, feel a sense of belonging, and realise their own self-worth.

Why Foster with Kibble?

At Kibble Fostering we pride ourselves on being a ‘fostering family’, made up of incredible children and young people. We’re a friendly and professional care team that includes our invaluable foster carers.

We do things differently compared to many other fostering agencies when it comes to the dedicated, skilled and knowledgeable team. We link up to every foster carer and young person, making sure you never feel alone or isolated. This support includes a 24/7 package of supports from our skilled placement supervisors and managers. They can also, if required, draw on wider supports from our colleagues working to support other Kibble Group community-based services.

Our success as a service has been recognised in our most recent Care Inspection. We were assessed to be sector leading for assessment and care planning. Read our Care Inspection report here.

We train together, make plans for our service together. We also recognise the need to support our foster carers financially and believe our foster carer fees to be amongst the highest remuneration rates in the country. Kibble Fostering provides long-term continuity and stability for the most vulnerable children within a supportive professional family.

Foster Carer Overview

To foster is to provide care, support and a loving home to a child or young person who is unable to live with their birth family.

There are various reasons why a child comes into care. These are normally due to the child’s early childhood experiences. Many of the young people at Kibble have experienced trauma in their short lives. Being welcomed into a supportive family home can be life-changing for them.

If approved as a foster carer with Kibble Fostering, you then become part of a team recognised to be sector leading. This covers their approach to care, support and planning for our young people.

Full-time Foster Carer

This is when you have a young person placed on a full-time basis. For this role, we would not expect you to be in any other paid employment, committing fully to your self-employed role as a full-time foster carer.

Foster Carer Responsibilities:

• Provide compassionate care and support for foster children, ensuring their physical and emotional well-being.
• Foster a safe and nurturing environment, promoting positive behaviour, emotional growth, and a positive attitude towards education.
• Maintain accurate records of care and progress, communicating effectively with the team around the child.
• Advocate for the child and, where appropriate, support their relationship with their birth family.
• Demonstrate patience, understanding and resilience, and be keen to practice therapeutic parenting skills.

The benefits of Fostering with Kibble:

• Full care team around for 24-hour support
• Allocated Family Placement Supervisor
• Allocated support worker who provides support for the young people and carers, carrying out focused pieces of work in support of all aspects of the care plan
• All young people can experience regular outreach time with support staff each week
• Excellent training and qualification opportunities
• Generous professional fees – up to £35k per child, per annum
• Generous allowances – up to £15k per child per annum
• Regular supervision
• Access to additional and specialist resources in support of the young person or foster carer as part of the Kibble Group.
• 28 days annual leave

Fostering Assessment:

The fostering assessment will cover practical information about your circumstances, and detailed information about you and your family (if applicable). You will also attend our Skills 2 Care training course, and we will ask for various checks and references including a PVG Check. The assessment process should take around 4 – 6 months to complete.

We’d love to hear from you if you:

• Have a spare room in your home.
• Have the time to give a child comfort, stability and security.
• Are willing to commit to training and professional development

Kibble Fostering welcome applications from individuals from all backgrounds.

We have an opportunity for a Strategic Planning Manager to join the Strategic Planning team on a full-time fixed term contract for 12 months. This is a dynamic role where you will co-ordinate the key components of the strategy management system.

It’s an exciting time to join the Fund as we implement our 2030 strategy ‘It Starts with Community’. Our ambitious 3-year Corporate Plan sets stretching goals to guide the organisation’s delivery of the strategy. The Strategic Planning team plays a key role in driving the Fund to achieve our overarching strategic ambitions. Through our strategy, we aim to build resilient communities that are more inclusive and environmentally sustainable. We’re committed to focusing our efforts where the need is greatest, particularly with people, places and communities who experience poverty, disadvantage, and discrimination. We’re eager to make a significant impact in the years ahead.

You will be part of a small, dispersed team working flexibly to meet the needs of our key stakeholders. The team oversees the Fund’s corporate planning, business planning and project/programme management processes to ensure we achieve our strategic ambitions.

You will bring expertise in strategic planning to facilitate the annual business planning process within senior leadership teams across the Fund, supporting directorates to deliver our strategic aspirations. We are looking for someone with a keen eye for detail who can also see the bigger picture. Through a continuous improvement approach you will regularly review our ways of working and be empowered to identify and implement innovative solutions. With your strategic thinking and analytical skills you will contribute to reports to senior leaders to provide assurance, raise issues and support effective decision making.

You will work collaboratively with our wider network of colleagues from across the organisation to deliver our key corporate processes, including the Finance team to ensure alignment between planning and budgeting.

You’ll play a key role in reporting against our strategic transformation and delivery programme, helping the Fund to assess whether we are on track to achieve our goals. You will have a strong background in project delivery, helping to develop and strengthen our internal project management capabilities by rolling out project management tools and templates, and providing coaching and guidance to project leads.

With strong organisational skills you will manage your workload and priorities throughout the year, ensuring that team priorities are met and aligning your efforts with the overall goals of the team. Your strong communication skills and passion will help raise the profile of the team and our work with colleagues across the Fund. There will be some travel expectations, with quarterly face-to-face team meetings within one of our offices.

Research and Involvement Officer (0146)

About The Job

We're excited to be hiring for a Research and Involvement Officer to join our Scotland team in Glasgow.

This post covers a diverse range of work areas both within the Scotland team and the wider Carers Trust social impact function of the organisation. It is pivotal to Carers Trust's mission to transform the lives of unpaid carers by securing robust evidence to influence changes to policy and practice for unpaid carers in Scotland.

The postholder will play a key role in bringing Scottish voices and perspectives to our UK-wide research and involvement functions and will work with colleagues across the UK to produce impactful evidence to influence changes beyond Scotland's borders. This post will also support the delivery of UK-wide research and involvement strategies in Scotland.

Download the recruitment pack below to find out more.

Equal Opportunities

As an equal opportunities' employer, Carers Trust is committed to the equal treatment of all current and prospective employees and does not condone discrimination on the basis of age, disability, sex, sexual orientation, pregnancy and maternity, race or ethnicity, religion or belief, gender identity, or marriage and civil partnership.

We aspire to have a diverse and inclusive workplace and strongly encourage suitably qualified applicants from a wide range of backgrounds to apply and join Carers Trust.