The position is offered on a 0.6 FTE basis (21.75 hours per week). This role will be home-based but will require travel to Edinburgh and/or other parts of Scotland for in-person meetings as required.

Are you passionate about making a real difference in children's lives through impactful policy and public affairs engagement? Are eager to develop your skills working with Scottish Government, MSPs, and other key decision-makers in Scotland? If so, we want to hear from you.

Barnardo's is looking for a Policy & Public Affairs Officer (Scotland) to help shape our influencing in Scotland. This is a fantastic opportunity for someone eager to build on their existing knowledge and experience with policy influencers in Scotland while playing a pivotal role in creating positive, lasting change for children, young people, and families.

In this role, you'll work closely with our Senior Policy and Public Affairs Lead (Scotland) to implement our influencing plan. You'll help raise Barnardo's Scotland's profile among key stakeholders and policy influencers. You'll be involved in:

• Monitoring key developments within the Scottish policy landscape
• Managing relationships and liaising with stakeholders at all levels
• Conducting research and producing reports to support our policy objectives
• Supporting reactive policy work to respond to emerging issues
• Organising events to showcase Barnardo's vital work and engage decision-makers

Your efforts will ensure that the voices of children, young people, families, and our services are central to our influencing activities in Scotland.

When completing your application please refer to your skills knowledge and experience in relation to the Person Specification and Job Description. This should be done with an understanding of the context of the service described.

Please note due to the high volume of applications for some posts, this advert might close before the displayed closing date. We recommend that you apply for this role as soon as possible.

Pay & Reward Framework

We know that our colleagues go above and beyond in delivering our vital work, driven by their passion and commitment to Barnardo's values. We also know that we can only realise our ambitions and achieve better outcomes for more children, thanks to the talent, hard work and creativity of our people.

For all these reasons, we are committed to a new approach to pay and reward, to ensure it is fair, attractive and progressive, which was rolled out in April 2023. This is a positive change for the charity, and a part of our People & Culture Strategy. It will assist us in supporting colleagues to belong, thrive and grow in their colleague journey at Barnardo's and in time will offer clear routes of progression for colleagues in both their career and their pay.

Whilst the full pay band and salary range is advertised, our approach to starting salaries is to appoint between the minimum to mid-point of the pay band – this ensures that pay steps are available to reward our colleagues annually based on their contribution to excellence and alignment to our values and behaviours. More details on Barnardo's pay framework can be found upon application.

Benefits

Workplace Offer: What it means for you

The world of work has changed. We are understanding of what works best for our colleagues both current and future as we look to embrace this new way of working. Our hybrid working initiative is based on trust, flexibility and empowerment. We understand our workplace offer means different things to different people, and we encourage those conversations. This may mean working at one of our stores, services, working at home, at one of our Collaboration Hubs or any combination of these.

• Barnardo's believe in creating equality of opportunity in the workplace and supporting people to manage their work-life balance; we are therefore open to offering flexible working arrangements.
• Annual Leave entitlement for full-time colleagues is 26 days per annum, increasing to 27 days per annum, after 3 years Barnardo's service, 29 days per annum, after 5 years Barnardo's service and 30 days per annum, after 7 years Barnardo's service. Those working less than full time are entitled to the same level of holiday pro rata
• The ability to buy up to another 5 days annual leave via our HolidayPlus scheme
• A host of family friendly leave options including company Maternity Paternity and Adoption pay; together with all family additional leave options
• Service related sick pay from day 1
• Access to a Group Personal Pension with a matched 4% or 6% contribution from Barnardo's. Ability to pay via salary sacrifice to garner both tax and NI savings on your own contribution
• Death in service cover of 4x annual earnings for all staff contributing to our Group Personal Pension
• Cycle2work scheme
• Interest free season ticket loans
• Discounts and cashback from at high street shops including major supermarkets, cinemas, gyms, leisure/theme parks, holidays and much more via our Benefit Portal
• 20% discount at Barnardo's stores
• Opportunity to purchase a health cash plan to claim towards dental, glasses, therapy etc
• Free access to round the clock employee assistance program for advice and support
• Access to Barnardo's Learning and Development offer

*T&C's apply based on contract

About Barnardo's

We are committed to being an inclusive employer and cultivating a culture where everyone can belong and thrive through inclusion and connectivity. We want our workforce to be reflective of the communities we work with, and for equality, diversity and inclusion to be embedded in everything we do. We are a Disability Confident Leader, are progressing our ambition to be an anti-racist organisation with Anti-Racism Commitments and actions in place and have networks for colleagues who are disabled, LGBT+, Black and Minoritised Ethnic and Women. We particularly encourage applications from Black and Minoritised Ethnic and/or disabled candidates who are currently underrepresented in our workforce. For disabled applicants, we offer reasonable adjustments throughout the recruitment process.

Our basis and values

Benefits:

• 29 days annual leave PLUS bank holidays, with up to 5 additional days for continuous service and option to buy or sell leave
• Gain professional qualifications and excellent training/development opportunities
• Flexible maternity, adoption, and paternity packages
• Pension with up to 7% employer contribution with included life assurance cover
• Staff discount portal and Blue Light Card eligibility with 15,000 national retailers discounts.
• Vulnerable children in the UK need your help

Wherever you work in the Action for Children family, you'll be helping to change the lives of the most vulnerable children in the UK.

Last year, we helped more than 670,000 children and families across the UK. From direct work in communities to national campaigning, we are focused on making sure every child has a safe and happy childhood, and the foundations they need to thrive.

Why Action for Children?

Working here is more than a job. Everyone in the Action for Children family is passionate about protecting and supporting children. It's the sense of purpose that drives us every single day. Because we know that, when we work together, we can make a huge difference to bring lasting improvements to vulnerable children's lives.

A bit about the role

Action for Children's Intensive Intervention Service is a voluntary service that aims to support children and young people aged 11-18 years who may be at risk of or coerced into, involvement with serious offending and criminal activity.

The service forms partnership with City of Edinburgh Council, Police Scotland, and Education as part of a multi-agency partnership strategy to intervene in a child or young person's life as early as possible to prevent the likelihood or impact of criminal exploitation.

The aim of the service is to provide intensive 1:1, group work and diversionary activities to help equip the child or young person with the necessary skills and tools to make positive choices and to re-engage and sustain education, training, or employment.

We’re seeking a dedicated Practitioner to provide targeted intervention to children and young people, fostering their potential and aiding them in overcoming personal barriers. The goal is to empower positive lifestyle choices by collaborating within various community settings. Working closely with families is paramount, as we strive to strengthen relationships and address vulnerabilities.

We highly encourage applications from individuals who have lived experience relevant to this role.

How you'll help to create brighter futures

Some key responsibilities of a Young Persons Practitioner role are;

• Leading interventions, ensuring positive outcomes, in line with policies and regulations.
• Supporting children and young people to re-engage in education and employment.
• Managing a caseload within the Services.
• Building strong relationships with individuals, organizations, and agencies and undertaking home visits where necessary.
• Attending meetings as required, including presenting cases at monthly meetings.
• Upholding safety policies and procedures for a positive work environment.

Let's talk about you

• SVQ /Diploma Level 3 or equivalent qualification in early years and childcare, social care or related background.
• Experience of working with young people in social work or experience in criminal justice.
• Working within a multi-agency social care, early years or health environment and applying safeguarding procedures
• Experience of managing cases, in accordance with agreed procedures and completing assessments, planning and reviews to ensure positive outcomes
• Ability to communicate effectively and engagingly and to maintain independent professional relationships, boundaries
• Provide outreach support across Edinburgh (Car mileage expenses reimbursed)

Good to know

Application Process

Please note we are unable to offer visa sponsorship for this role.

Contact: Laura McCarthy at recruitmentservice@actionforchildren.org.uk quoting reference 10925

Diversity, equality and inclusion

At Action for Children, we're dedicated to building a diverse, inclusive, and authentic workplace.

We actively encourage applications from Black, Asian & Minority Ethnic and disabled candidates as they are under-represented within Action for Children. We want to take deliberate and purposeful action to ensure equal opportunity to all groups in society and for Action for Children.

Male staff are under-represented within our Children Service roles. We would like to encourage more male applicants for our Children Service roles.

Don't meet every single requirement?

If you're excited about this role but your experience doesn't align perfectly with the job description, we'd love you to apply anyway. You might just be the perfect person for this role, or another role within the Action for Children family.

Why Action for Children?

Working here is more than a job. Everyone in the Action for Children family is passionate about protecting and supporting children. It is the sense of purpose that drives us every single day. Because we know that, when we work together, we can make a huge difference to bring lasting improvements to vulnerable children's lives.

A bit about the role

This is an exciting opportunity to join Action for Children as a Senior Bid Writer, with responsibility for producing professionally written high scoring bid responses to meet defined quality standards.

Reporting to the Head of Business Development for Scotland, the successful candidate will predominantly be working on bids for the business in Scotland but will also work flexibly across the wider UK Business Development Team, as required.

The bids will be for a variety of service areas, and you will ensure that the written bid clearly articulates Action for Children's offer in a way that is compelling to provide a competitive advantage and is consistent with our brand and our passion to deliver service excellence.

How you'll help to create brighter futures

• Apply functional expertise to clearly articulate the quality of our service provision through written submissions.
• Work collaboratively and engagingly with internal colleagues to translate quality practice into conceptual model descriptors.
• Use a range of software packages to visually represent complex ideas in accessible ways.
• Work collaboratively and effectively with members of the Business Development team and Operational Colleagues.
• Interpret complex data to ensure the commissioners preference is evident in the written submission.
• Source business opportunities, including finding out about the service/sector for the written bid.
• Gather evidence to answer PQQ (Pre -Qualification Questionnaire) questions, including collecting data for bids.

Let's talk about you

• High level written skills to translate and structure complex information in a simple, straight forward, and logical way to support high scoring bids.
• Demonstrates the ability to lead or support the development of bids that win new business.
• Ability to gather and manage intelligence to inform the development of bid win narratives.
• Experience of bid work; transferable experience will also be acceptable.
• High level of IT skills including ability to use graphic design programmes to support bid production.
• Demonstrates the ability to lead or support the development of bids that win new business.

Benefits:

• 29 days annual leave PLUS bank holidays, with up to 5 additional days for continuous service and option to buy or sell leave.
• Gain professional qualifications and excellent training/development opportunities.
• Flexible maternity, adoption, and paternity packages.
• Pension with up to 7% employer contribution with included life assurance cover.
• Staff discount portal and Blue Light Card eligibility with 15,000 national retailer's discounts.

Do you want to make a difference to our children and young people?

Do you believe that every one of Scotland’s children and young people deserve the chance to flourish?

If so, this is the post for YOU!

About Aberlour Glasgow Intensive Family Support Service (IFSS)(City Wide)…

Aberlour will be working in partnership with the Glasgow City Health and Social Care Partnership and other Third Sector providers to promote the wellbeing of children and young people by offering caring and responsive support, something which is now needed more than ever as a result of the COVID-19 crisis. Aberlour Glasgow Intensive Family Support will deliver the support families need, when they need it. The aim of the service is to ensure that children and young people can continue to flourish at home, at school and in their local community.

What we are looking for....

We are looking to recruit a Family Support Worker, working 37.5 hours per week on a fixed term basis until 14th September 2025. You will work directly with families to nurture relationships, build on existing strengths and interests, help children and families build skills and confidence and strengthen community connections. You will be part of a multi-disciplinary team that works for a period of up to 12 months with families to support and enable positive change and improve outcomes. Our ambition is to help children, young people and families feel safe, confident, capable, and included, offering support when it is needed, including evenings and weekends. We believe in working alongside families, empowering them to lead positive change in their own lives.

We are looking for candidates who are experienced in working alongside vulnerable families to assess strengths and needs as well as plan, deliver and evaluate interventions and strategies which enable families to thrive. You will have experience of child and adult protection issues. Experience of working within other childcare settings such as Residential Child Care will be considered.

You must share our vision that collaborative working and relationship based early intervention is the best option for children and families who are feeling overwhelmed or excluded. Ideally you will hold a relevant professional qualification at SCQF level 7 or above, together with relevant experience of working directly with children or young people and their families. Not afraid to test new ways of working, you will bring a fresh, caring, and collaborative approach which recognises strengths and responds empathically to the needs of children, young people, and their families – this will include early mornings, evenings, and weekends.

To succeed in this role, you will need to work flexibly within a variety of locations across Glasgow City, including family homes, schools, and community settings.

At Aberlour we want to make sure every child and young person has the love, support and opportunity they need to reach their potential. If you share the same vision, we want you to join our team. To have a look at our values to understand more about what we are looking for from our employees click here

What we offer...

As well as a supportive team and excellent training opportunities, we want all our employees to feel valued and rewarded for the vital work they do. When you work with us, we'll recognise your efforts with generous annual leave, an excellent employer pension scheme and a range of deals and discounts across various retailers. Find out more about our Employee Benefits and our commitment to Equality and Diversity here.