The Eric Liddell Community is a local care charity and community hub in the South West of Edinburgh delivering a range of services throughout the City. Founded in 1980 in memory of Eric Liddell, the 1924 Olympic 400m gold medallist, our mission is to be at the heart of the community, enhancing health and wellbeing and improving people’s lives.

Due to continued funding from The National Lottery Community Fund – Improving Lives for our Stay Connected, Community Support Programme, an exciting opportunity for a Community Engagement Co-ordinator to join our team has become available. If you would like to work for a local care charity in a rewarding role where you will make a difference, then join us here at The Eric Liddell Community.

The main purpose of this job is to engage with the local community, gather their feedback and requirements and involve them at every stage in the design, development, and delivery of programmes at The Eric Liddell Community.

You will coordinate the delivery of these programmes, activities, and gatherings while working closely with your colleagues in the Carer Services Team. The post also works in collaboration with other Eric Liddell Community staff colleagues.

If you are a motivated individual with excellent coordination, organisation, and communication skills and a passion to support people living with dementia and their carers/care partners and want to work as part of a great team, we would love to hear from you.

The Eric Liddell Community are looking for new Trustees to join the Board of Directors.

If you are interested in becoming a Trustee of one of Edinburgh’s most respected specialist dementia and care charities, please get in touch.

Our vision is a community where no one feels lonely or isolated. Our mission is to bring people together in their communities to enhance health and well-being and have a positive impact on their lives.

We are driving progress toward this by: providing a “sector leading” and “excellent” Dementia Day Service, alongside an open programme for community-based activities for people living with dementia, a programme of wellbeing activities, courses and opportunities for unpaid carers, a Befriending Service and running our vibrant Community Hub which welcomes over 7,000 every month, in the heart of Edinburgh.

In the last few years, The Eric Liddell Community has undergone a period of growth and expansion financially and also in how we deliver our caring services.

The Board are looking to expand the diversity of our Trustees and are interested in applicants from the following areas:

• Social Care
• Charity Fundraising

We have a vacancy for a Hub and System Support Manager.

About Thistle

At Thistle we believe in a world of inclusion, free of isolation and loneliness, where a health crisis doesn’t mean a life crisis.

Our charity supports people with disabilities and long-term health conditions; to lead good lives and achieve what matters most to them. We believe that everyone in Scotland should have access to our person-centred approach to health and wellbeing.

About The Role

Do you have background in an administrative or leadership role? Do you have a track record of improving processes and providing a great service? Do you enjoy a fast-paced, varied role where you can make a real difference? If so, we would love to hear from you.

You will work alongside, manage and support our small, friendly Hub Support Team. You will oversee our mailbox, admin processes, administrative tasks, the development of the IT systems and provide support and supervision to the team. Responding to a range of enquiries, you will enjoy dealing people both in person and online. You will be a genuine team player and able to juggle the competing demands of day-to-day reactive work alongside more proactive work.

This role is an excellent opportunity for a motivated and enthusiastic person, who can manage competing priorities, support a team and work to deadlines. The post will involve a requirement to work with sensitive information, with a high degree of discretion.

Interviews will be held on Monday 21st July.

Please see the detailed job description here for more information

What we offer

• The opportunity to work with a fun and friendly team focused on making a difference in the lives of people living in communities across Scotland
• Hybrid working between home, and our award winning offices in Craigmillar, Edinburgh
• Learning and development opportunities including our internal development programme
• Contributory pension scheme
• Non-contributory death in service benefit scheme
• 35 days of annual leave
• Free Thistle Gym membership
• Membership of the HSF Health & Benefits Plan

Thistle Foundation is an Equal Opportunities Employer.

Successful applicants will be subject to a Disclosure check, which will be paid for by Thistle.

About the Scottish Child Law Centre

We are a specialist hub protecting children’s rights in Scotland. We provide free legal advice about child law and children’s rights to promote equitable access to justice and specialist training which strengthens advocacy and sustainable support for the rights of the child. We also use evidence from our direct engagement and work with partners to influence long term change for children.

Importantly, we are the only specialist hub for all ages of children and across all areas of child-related Scots’ law. We are here for children, and those who care and support them, and all advice is provided by our qualified solicitors.

Many more children and families are struggling with complex issues in the backdrop of increasing poverty, and demand for our free legal advice has significantly increased. We also know from feedback that our specialist training is deeply valued in the current fast-moving children’s policy environment and as children’s rights are implemented.

The Scottish Child Law Centre’s vision is for ‘All children growing up in Scotland to have their rights respected, protected and fulfilled.’ To support that vision and the growing need, we have recently produced a communications strategy to raise our profile and further extend our reach, particularly targeting communities experiencing multiple breaches of their rights.

The Centre has been through a rapid transformation over the past few years with new, innovative services being set up to ensure that children and young people have knowledge of their rights and how to realise them. We will be opening an in-person free community law clinic in Govanhill in September to allow us to reach those children and families who need us most and provide tailored support to empower families to realise children’s rights. We will also be launching our Access to Justice Programme for secondary school students, which is a course that has been co-produced with the students of Bucksburn Academy. The course aims to coach young people on access to justice and will provide opportunities for young people to influence change in their communities.

About the Role

Are you an experienced communicator and passionate children’s rights advocate? If so, we’d love you to hear from you.

We are looking for a communications officer to drive forward the Scottish Child Law Centre’s communications and to further raise our external profile and demonstrate our impact.

Ideally, you will also have experience of children’s policy and/or have worked with children and young people. Public affairs experience would also be valuable.

We are a supportive, creative and dynamic team and this is a part-time post.

Your responsibilities will include:

• Taking a strategic approach to communications to communicate to a wide variety of audiences the Centre’s purpose and services
• Implementing the communications strategy for the Centre and specific projects such as our community clinic and schools project.
• Co-ordinating our forward communications planner to effectively raise our profile as a specialist hub protecting children’s rights in Scotland, and across a diversity of audiences and channels.
• Drafting content for all of the Centre’s communications to engage and support a wide range of audiences, and in line with our Message House and wider communications strategy. This will include letter/emails, social media messaging, graphics, leaflets, press releases, articles, blogs and newsletters.
• Attending team meetings and working closely with the team to best identify all activities, opportunities and issues to inform our forward communications.
• Regular liaison with the senior solicitor and director to discuss the child policy environment and provide communications campaign support where the Centre can support or influence change for children.
• Supporting the community advice clinics and wider work through inclusive and accessible communication materials. This includes a bank of case stories, educational materials, and in person and creative events to help people understand how the Centre’s services and knowledge of child law and children’s rights can support them.
• Monitoring and regularly refreshing the content of the Centre’s website, ensuring it is inclusive and accessible to a diversity of audiences.
• Drafting funding applications to support diversification of the Centre’s funding
• Leading on the shaping of creative social media campaigns across all channels, including Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Instagram and TikTok.
• Producing a quarterly online and print newsletter to keep our membership, partners and the wider public updated on the Centre’s work and impact.
• Designing online surveys to support the Centre’s evaluation and monitoring work.
• Responsibility for the Community Clinic’s monitoring and evaluation, through liaising with the administrator and solicitor regarding collection of data and using this to develop a narrative and writing funding reports and demonstrate the impact more widely
• Building the Centre’s media presence. This includes establishing a network of supportive print, broadcast and specialist media contacts, generating content for each, preparing quotes and supporting the team with media opportunities.
• Organising promotional events and materials, such as a Scottish Parliament exhibition/event and promotional stalls at related national conferences.
• Regularly reviewing and updating distribution lists for the Centre’s key communications.

Person specification

• Highly developed communication skills, written and oral, and an ability to provide complex legal information in a comprehensible way to children, young people and those for whom English is an additional language.
• Ability to liaise and work effectively in partnership with a wide range of partner organisations and funders.
• Ability to work independently and on own initiative, taking responsibility for delivering and reporting on set targets.
• Excellent IT skills and organisational skills.
• Graphic design skills to draft videos and images in our branding for social media.
• Clear understanding of how to gather evidence, monitoring and evaluation and how to communicate our impact to different audiences.
• Experience of drafting funding applications.
• Knowledge and understanding of how to engage children and young people through digital media.
• Excellent people skills with an ability to build positive and productive working relationships with a wide range of stakeholders.
• Monitoring of the communications budget line and that activities are delivered within budget.
• Monitoring and evaluation of communications activities to ensure a cycle of continuous improvement.