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, providing items at no cost when needed.

Purpose of the job:

We are looking for a Retail Supervisor to join our team of volunteers and Retail & Enterprise Manager at our shop on Alloa High Street. The successful candidate will provide day to day management of the shop on their working days, providing effective support for our team of dedicated volunteers, and supporting the recruitment, induction, and on-going training of volunteers.

The post holder will ensure appropriate standards of security and health and safety in the shop and be responsible for effective management of stock to provide a high-quality retail experience, and meet ambitious sales targets.

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. In Scotland, Home-Starts have over 1,500 volunteers supporting over 3,500 families and 6,500 children each year through compassionate, confidential help to parents/carers when they need us most. The parents/carers we support are often overwhelmed and isolated. They may be struggling with mental health, illness, disability, multiple births, poverty, domestic abuse, separation and/or trauma. We provide a bespoke support package of 1:1 in home 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.

In 2024, Action for Children, NHS (speech and language) and Educational Psychology launched an exciting new provision called Play Roots with the support and funding from our local Child Wellbeing Partnership. Play Roots is an enhanced 0-5 group provision for local families operating across four localities in Clackmannanshire weekly.

Purpose of the job

Play Roots has developed rapidly since the first group launched, with families directly informing our sessions, allowing us to ensure we are delivering a communities based, group support system, providing a nurturing and educational environment for children (0-5) and their parents/carers. Play Roots aims to enhance positive well-being, parent-child attachment, support early childhood development, and encourage wider community connections and changes for parental progression; providing the foundations for children and families to flourish long-term.

We are looking for an enthusiastic, driven practitioner, capable of coordinating the delivery of our four local groups to ensure their effective running, and maximising impact through groups supporting the development of children and parents/carers by creating fun and interesting learning environments/activities to enhance skills, promote emotional resilience, and encourage positive behaviours and routines. Central to this role is effectively liaising with partners and supporting our delivery team made up of staff from Home-Start Clackmannanshire, Action for Children, Educational Psychology, Speech and language, and a growing team of volunteers.

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.
• Maintain high standards of practice in supporting families within the Home-Start model.
• Ensure equality of opportunity, fairness and diversity in all aspects of the scheme’s work.
• Implement best safeguarding practice in all areas of work.

Main Responsibilities

Supporting the work of Home-Start Clackmannanshire and our Play Roots Partnership

• Undertaking work as delegated by our CEO to support the strategic management, development, evaluation, and future funding of Play Roots.
• Supporting the implementation of and upholding all Home-Start policies and procedures.
• Complying with the scheme’s administration, monitoring and financial systems.
• Promoting the work of the scheme, as required by the CEO.
• Contributing to and supporting the development of the Home-Start network locally, regionally and nationally.

Support for families

• Take a lead role in receiving and assessing referrals to Play Roots in a timely manner.
• Making initial contact/arranging implementation of support or delegating to operational team members within Home-Start and Action for Children to do.
• Lead delivery partners in planning, preparing for, and delivering group sessions (4 sessions across 4 locations, weekly, during term time).
• Enhance group support offer by leading the planning, preparation and delivery of Holiday Programmes for families.
• Providing rich learning environments where children and their families can engage.
• Facilitating interventions one to one or in a group to support identified areas of need.
• Building effective relationships and channels of communication with our partners, such as children, young people, families, colleagues, and external agencies.
• Ensuring support to families is of a high standard, in accordance with Home-Start’s model, policies and procedures.
• To undertake designated responsibilities to safeguard and promote children’s welfare.

Supporting Volunteers

• We could not deliver our services without the support of our incredible team of volunteers. As such, you will be involved in ensuring any Home-Start volunteers contributing to Play Roots sessions are appropriately onboarded, supported, informed, and adhere to all organisational policies and procedures.

Working in Partnership

• Ensuring appropriate liaison with referrers and other professionals.
• Networking appropriately within the community.

The post holder may be required to undertake any other duties that fall within the nature of the role and responsibilities of the post as detailed above.

About Aberlour

Aberlour is the largest solely Scottish children’s charity. Delivering more than fifty services, we work with children, young people and families, providing services and support in communities across Scotland.

We work with families to overcome the challenges they face, such as the impact of drugs and alcohol, growing up in and leaving care, poor mental health, living with a disability, experience of domestic abuse or the impact of poverty and disadvantage.

We offer compassionate support to families and support them in their journey to heal and grow. We have a strong record of using knowledge and evidence from our work to campaign for change and to improve the lives of children, young people and families across Scotland and champion the human rights of children, young people and families.

What we are looking for....

You will have knowledge of the current Scottish political system at a national and local level with awareness of social justice and anti-poverty policy in Scotland and key children’s policy areas, including the UNCRC and The Promise. You will have experience working in the third sector along with skills in research and analysis. You will have experience in writing briefings or policy papers, running seminars, conference and events, and addressing a range of audiences.

You will have the ability to think creatively, network successfully forming positive relationships and work in collaboration with others.

This is a full-time post working 37.5 hours per week. Hours of work can be worked flexibly, although there may be a requirement for some work in the evenings or at weekends. There is a 5% unsocial hours allowance included in the salary to accommodate this expectation.

Your work base can be flexible, we are able to support a mix of office and home working as required.

Please see the job description for further details about the role along with the required qualification level.

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.

If you would like to have an informal chat about the role please contact Martin Canavan, Head of Policy and Influencing on 07714 271700.

We also follow Data Protection Guidelines - Here is our privacy policy.

If you have any other queries about the job please e-mail jobs@aberlour.org.uk

Aberlour is committed to the safeguarding and welfare of all our service users and uses a thorough and rigorous recruitment and selection process including PVG Scheme checks to ensure this commitment is not compromised.

About Aberlour

Aberlour is the largest solely Scottish children’s charity. Delivering more than fifty services, we work with children, young people and families, providing services and support in communities across Scotland.

We work with families to overcome the challenges they face, such as the impact of drugs and alcohol, growing up in and leaving care, poor mental health, living with a disability, experience of domestic abuse or the impact of poverty and disadvantage.

We offer compassionate support to families and support them in their journey to heal and grow. We have a strong record of using knowledge and evidence from our work to campaign for change and to improve the lives of children, young people and families across Scotland and champion the human rights of children, young people and families. With funding from The Robertson Trust, we are delivering the Challenging Public Debt Project focused on influencing change in local public sector debt recovery policy and practice and its impact on low-income families across Scotland.

What we are looking for....

You will support our Senior Policy Lead to deliver our Challenging Public Debt Project helping to influence changes to local authority public debt recovery policy and practice. You will support and coordinate project activity to help achieve the identified aims of the project. You will maintain a children’s rights approach to amplifying the views and experiences of children, young people and families to inform, influence and develop the work of the project and support Aberlour’s wider policy, influencing and campaigning work.

You will have knowledge of the current Scottish political system at a national and local level with awareness of social justice and anti-poverty policy in Scotland and key children’s policy areas, including the UNCRC and The Promise. You will also have knowledge of areas of policy relating to money and debt advice and public sector debt recovery processes. You will have experience working in the third sector along with skills in research and analysis. You will have experience in writing briefings or policy papers, running seminars, conferences and events, and addressing a range of audiences.

You will have the ability to think creatively, network successfully forming positive relationships and work in collaboration with others.

This is a part-time post working 18.75 hours per week (half time). Hours of work can be worked flexibly, although there may be a requirement for some work in the evenings or at weekends. There is a 5% unsocial hours allowance included in the salary to accommodate this expectation.

Your work base can be flexible, we are able to support a mix of office and home working as required.

Please see the job description for further details about the role along with the required qualification level.

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.

If you would like to have an informal chat about the role please contact Martin Canavan, Head of Policy and Influencing on 07714 271700.

We also follow Data Protection Guidelines - Here is our privacy policy.

If you have any other queries about the job please e-mail jobs@aberlour.org.uk

Aberlour is committed to the safeguarding and welfare of all our service users and uses a thorough and rigorous recruitment and selection process including PVG Scheme checks to ensure this commitment is not compromised.