Home-Start Clackmannanshire is a long standing, dynamic charity, striving to ensure every young child (under 12) has the best possible start in life locally. Raising a family has never been easy; our trained volunteers and staff are there to support families through challenging times.

We provide a bespoke support package of 1:1 and group services for families, helping them to cope with the stresses and strains of daily life and encourage them to build the skills, confidence, and strength they need to nurture their children for years to come. As part of our service, we run a charity shop in Alloa, which generates income for our support work, offers volunteering opportunities, and is a local Bairn Bank.

Through a Home-Start UK partnership and funding through The Pears Foundation, we are excited to be able to offer a brand-new role within our team, for a Volunteer and Community Engagement Worker, to allow us to provide dedicated resource to reviewing and developing our volunteering programme. Learning from this post will inform Home-Start UK work towards supporting the transformation of volunteering across the network. This is a fixed term contract, with potential of extension dependent upon sourcing continued funding.

Purpose of the job

In recent years, particularly since COVID, the volunteering landscape has changed significantly both locally and nationally. Traditional roles, such as home visiting and charity retail, have seen declining engagement, requiring us to adapt and evolve to continue supporting our communities effectively. We must remain flexible, create new opportunities, and leverage digital tools to recruit, train, and support volunteers.

Through introducing this new role, we will work to systematically assess and develop all aspects of our volunteer programme.

The role will be structured around three themes:

1. Understanding Volunteer Motivations to Improve our Recruitment and Retention
2. Developing and Implementing Diverse Volunteer Roles across our family support, and charity shop work.
3. Enhancing Accessibility of our Volunteer Programme

The Volunteer and Community Engagement Worker will have a key focus on community engagement, assisting to enhance our community fundraising profile and activities, contributing to the sustainability of the role.

You will also:

• Contribute to the effective day to day operation of the scheme in accordance with the Home-Start Memorandum & Articles of Association, Home-Start, Standards & Methods of Practice, Home-Start Agreement and Quality Assurance Standards.
• To maintain high standards of practice within the Home-Start model.
• To ensure equality of opportunity, fairness and diversity in all aspects of the scheme’s work.
• Implement good safeguarding practice in all areas of work.

A fantastic opportunity to come and join the Children First team in East Ayrshire

At Children First our ambition is for every child in Scotland to be safe, loved and well with their family. As a charity we offer emotional, practical, and financial support to help families to put children first and campaign to uphold the rights of every child.

We have two exciting opportunities to be part of either our innovative Restorative Family Group Decision Making Service, or our East Ayrshire Family Wellbeing Service.

Position one: Project Worker - Family Group Decision Making

The team and model of relational and restorative approaches, including Family Group Decision Making, will play a pivotal role in the delivery and development of the service, ensuring high quality relationships with children and families and working alongside our partners to evidence impact. We are therefore looking to recruit a dynamic, experienced individual who can help drive the successful development and growth of this new and innovative partnership.

Previous experience in the delivery of Family Group Decision Making is not essential but you must be able to demonstrate an understanding of the principles and values of the approach. You must also show a commitment to complete accredited training, which will be provided.

This is a part-time position of 28 hours per week.

Position two: Project Worker – Family Wellbeing

In this role you will be working alongside families of school aged children who are experiencing mental and emotional distress and subsequently struggling in school, in the community or at home.

At Children First we work with the whole family, and we see our relationships as the key to our approach in improving wellbeing. We offer families space and time to tell their stories, make sense of their difficulties and help them to find their solutions.

You will have a sound knowledge of the impact of trauma and adversity on parenting and on children’s development, and to promote children’s safety and wellbeing, will meet families at times and places that most suits their needs. This post requires flexibility, which mean daytime, evening and weekend work, in order to offer appropriate level of support to individual families and deliver community events.

This position is full-time 35 hours per week.

What kind of people are we looking for?

If you have experience of working within child protection processes, are committed to restorative approaches, meaningfully involving children and families, and have a professional qualification in a relevant area such as Social Work, Teaching or equivalent in Childcare/Social Care or related area, accredited counselling qualification, or other relevant qualification at SCQF level 9 or higher then we want to hear from you.

Children First along with partners share a determination to act upon the recommendations from The Independent Care Review and deliver The Promise to children and young people. We are also determined that the full incorporation of the UNCRC means that children will have their rights respected in all areas of their lives and will have a real say in the way they are supported. If you share this determination, we would love to hear from you.

Additionally, you:

• will have experience of keeping children safe in their own families
• are fiercely passionate about children’s rights
• think it’s a privilege to work with and on behalf of children and families and,
• are kind and will bring their whole selves to the job: heart and mind

What kind of team member will you be?

Knowing our ambition for children, you will be someone who is:

• resilient, skilled and knowledgeable who wants to transform children’s lives
• determined to support children to stay safely with their own family
• big hearted and courageous
• able to build strong relationships and to manage the tricky conversations
• is compassionate and understanding of trauma
• a cool head and clear minded at times of pressure
• inspiring colleagues and teams to be even better
• an amazing ambassador for children and Children First

Above all else, the most important thing to us is that you are someone who will do the right thing for children and their families at every turn.

Base

You will be based in East Ayrshire with our partners in the HSCP and will travel to connect with other parts of the organisation. You will work on an outreach basis to connect with children and families in communities across East Ayrshire which will require some evening and weekend working.

Salary, Conditions, Pension

We will offer you a competitive salary, generous annual leave entitlement (40 days inclusive of 9 public holidays). ​We have additional benefits such as a cash back health plan, cycle to work scheme, and option to join a ​Credit Union.+

A fantastic opportunity to come and join the Children First team in North Ayrshire

This is an exciting opportunity to be part of our Family Wellbeing Service in North Ayrshire and an innovative partnership between Children First and CORRA Foundation, working alongside families, building strong relationships, taking an approach that is restorative, relational and trauma informed striving to achieving positive outcomes for families. This service is funded by the Scottish Government and is delivered over a period of 5 years.

We are also determined that the full incorporation of the UNCRC means that children will have their rights respected in all areas of their lives and will have a real say in the way they are supported. If you share this determination, we would love to hear from you.

Our project builds on the voices of the recovery community and our extensive experience in supporting children and families impacted by substance use. We will do this through early help providing community-based whole family support that can be accessed easily in a non-stigmatising way and more acute support for whole families through pathways related to our integrated drug and alcohol recovery service e.g. residential rehabilitation and/ or inpatient detox and rehabilitation.

Our project seeks to:

Ensure children, families and communities affected by substance use in North Ayrshire access early help to prevent crisis and to support the whole family to recover from the impact of substance use.

Reduce the number of people who develop problem drug use.

Promote a whole system’s approach personalised to the specific needs of families impacted by substance use, ensuring that individual’s most at risk, have access to specialist support that aids their recovery.

What kind of people are we looking for?

• have experience of keeping children safe in their own families
• are fiercely passionate about children’s rights
• thinks it’s a privilege to work with and on behalf of children and families and,
• are kind and will bring their whole selves to the job: heart and mind

What kind of Family Wellbeing team member will you be?

Knowing our ambition for children, you will be someone who is:

• resilient, skilled and knowledgeable who wants to transform children’s lives
• determined to support children to stay safely with their own family
• big hearted and courageous
• able to build strong relationships and to manage the tricky conversations
• is compassionate and understanding of trauma
• a cool head and clear minded at times of pressure
• inspiring colleagues and teams to be even better
• an amazing ambassador for children and Children First

Above all else, the most important thing to us is that you are someone who will do the right thing for children and their families at every turn.

Base

You will be based in Irvine, Bourtreehill within our Children First North Ayrshire space and will travel to connect with other parts of the organisation and North Ayrshire HSCP. You will work on an outreach basis to connect with children and families in communities across North Ayrshire.

Salary, Conditions, Pension

We will offer you a competitive salary, generous annual leave entitlement (40 days inclusive of 9 public holidays). ​We have additional benefits such as a cash back health plan, cycle to work scheme, and option to join a ​Credit Union.

Further Information

At Children First, we are committed to building a diverse and inclusive team that reflects communities across Scotland. Guided by our values, With Love, With Purpose, With Strength, we strive to create a culture where everyone feels valued, respected, and supported to thrive. We actively work to remove barriers to inclusion and promote equity in all aspects of our work. We warmly welcome applications from people of all backgrounds, especially those from marginalised communities, and are dedicated to ensuring a fair and supportive recruitment process.

All roles at OPFS contribute to our mission of working with and for single parent families, providing support that enables them to achieve their potential and help create lasting solutions to the poverty and barriers facing many single parents and their children. Our core values of Justice, Equity, Trust, Collaboration and Compassion are at the heart of everything we do and underpin all aspects of our work.

Roles and responsibilities:

The Development Worker for the Lone Parent Positive Workplaces Programme will provide support and guidance to lone parents in securing, maintaining and advancing employment opportunities. The role involves creating and inclusive, supportive work environment for lone parents, ensuring they have access to resources and networks that enable them to balance work and family responsibilities successfully. Working collaboratively as part of the national project to test and demonstrate opportunities and contribute to the wider objectives.