About The Yard:

The Yard is an award-winning charity delivering place-based family support across Edinburgh, Dundee, Glasgow and Fife to more than 3,700 disabled children and young people and their families.

About the role:

We are seeking a Head of Communications to lead our communications, public affairs and profile work to make the organisation the unmistakable voice on place-based, whole-family support.

You will be part of our executive team and responsible for making decisions that impact the whole organisation and shape how family support models are understood and adopted across Scotland.

Some of your key responsibilities will include:

• Developing a 12–18-month communications and public affairs strategy that positions The Yard as a sector leader
• Leading with a media-first approach to secure high-value national and regional media coverage
• Building relationships with policy teams, sector bodies and strategic partners
• Overseeing content strategy for our website, socials and newsletters to ensure consistent, evidence-led messaging and audience growth

About you:

Our culture is central to our success, and the successful applicant will need to lead and manage in line with our values.

This job is for you if you have:

• Senior communications experience with a strong track record in media relations, campaign delivery and public affairs
• Proven success securing national media coverage and managing broadcast interviews
• Excellent written and verbal communication skills
• Strong strategic thinking, project management and stakeholder management skills
• Experience of leading and developing a small team

If you are inspired by our ethos and excited to bring your knowledge and experience to a team that is highly committed to our purpose, we would love to have you on board.

This is a newly created role, with responsibility for financial management owned previously by the Executive Director, supported by the Head of Finance & Operations. In the refreshed structure operational and finance functions are separated.

The purpose of this role is to ensure the organisation is financially sustainable, well-governed, and able to deliver its mission effectively. You will lead the financial management of the organisation, ensuring robust financial control, high-quality reporting, and effective financial planning to support strategic decision-making and long-term sustainability. This is a hands-on, collaborative role in a busy team, spanning both strategic and operational finance.

At Space we believe that connections build communities.

Well established in South West Edinburgh for over 30 years, our team of staff and volunteers engage with our communities to design and deliver services that create environments where people feel supported, empowered and valued.

We are in the final year of our current strategy; as we head into 26/27, we will be reviewing progress and embarking on our strategy for 2027-2030.

The Role

The Head of Community and Connections is a key leadership role, taking ownership of our frontline services which includes our varied and diverse work with Children and Young People, Adults and Older People, and Community Learning and Development. More information about our services can be found on our website spacescot.org.

You’ll be line managing a team of experienced, skilled and passionate individuals, enhancing their strengths and supporting them to further develop.

Working closely with our Board, CEO and Management Team you’ll help to shape strategy, strengthen partnerships and ensure the standard of our services remain high quality, sustainable and rooted in community need.

This is a rare opportunity to step into a pivotal leadership role at a defining moment for Space.

You’ll play a central role in shaping our next strategy, influencing what our services look like over the next 3–5 years, and helping translate ambition into meaningful impact.

Alongside this, you’ll support the development of an emerging Community Health Service — building on strong foundations to create something ambitious, responsive and genuinely impactful for local communities.

If you’re someone who enjoys shaping direction, developing people and turning ideas into reality, this is a role with real scope and influence.

Day to day you be:

• Helping develop and deliver Space’s organisational strategy

• Shaping services to be impactful and responsive, spotting opportunities to grow, improve or reimagine what we do — always guided by community voice

• Representing Space confidently across networks, partnerships and collaborations

• Supporting and developing Project Managers to flourish in their role, coaching, creating space for reflection and learning, sharing learning and championing continuous improvement

• Ensuring safeguarding, compliance and HR responsibilities are understood and embedded

• Leading change thoughtfully — bringing people with you

• Overseeing service budgets and supporting managers to feel confident with finances

• Working alongside our fundraising team to identify, secure and sustain funding

• Building strong, transparent relationships with funders and partners

• Be a key leader in the Space team, building positive working relationships across the organisation

What it’s like to work at Space:

We care deeply about what we do and how we work. We work hard and get stuck in because we truly care about our community and each other.

We live our values – they’re not just words printed on letterheads.

We’re a team and work collaboratively, we support each other to succeed, we value relationships as much as results – egos are best left at the door.

We’re not a finished article, we’re still evolving, still learning and not everything is perfectly optimised (yet).

We find a way – we focus on solutions; challenges are puzzles to be worked out not excuses to give up.

We’re curious and innovative, we challenge the norm and aren’t scared to voice ideas if we think we have a better way.

The sector is demanding and unpredictable at times, priorities shift but if difficult decisions have to be made and we do it with integrity and maintain a people first ethos.

We have a pretty flexible approach to work - we know that everyone’s body clocks, responsibilities and preferred working environments differ. At the same time, we really value staying connected and collaborating with each other. From experience, our work is at its strongest when we come together, so we encourage a healthy balance with a regular presence in the office.

What you’ll bring:

• Experience of leading or overseeing frontline Health & Social Care or community based services at a senior level

• A people first mindset and strong, values led people management experience

• Good judgement – you’ll know when to stick to policy and when to exercise common sense to make balanced decisions

• A positive can do attitude, ready to roll your sleeves up and take on challenges

• Clear communication, being able to naturally connect with people on all levels across the organisation and with stakeholders, and easily build a reputation for being approachable and trustworthy

• Confidence working with budgets and financial information, able to not only understand but translate them to others. Knowledge of charity finances would be an advantage

• Experience of working with a Board of Trustees and reporting to funders

• The ability to plan well, write business cases and manage multiple complex projects at the same time

• Strong digital skills, confidence using Microsoft Office (we use Outlook, SharePoint, Teams, Word, Excel, PowerPoint) and digital collaboration tools

• A solid understanding of health & safety practices and safeguarding

• Some flexibility with working hours to provide occasional on call telephone support to services that run out with typical office hours.