This is a brand new post, created through two-year funding from Macmillan Cancer Support. The Cancer CARE Worker will provide independent advocacy, decision-making support, and peer network development for people living with cancer and their unpaid carers across Fife.

CARE stands for Culture, Agency, Respect, and Equity. These four words describe what every person supported through this project should experience.

This is not a Carer Support Worker role. It sits at a higher level of autonomy and complexity, involving one-to-one clinical liaison, co-facilitation with NHS teams, professional training delivery, and leadership of a lived experience co-design process. It requires someone who can hold professional relationships with oncology teams in the morning and sit with a carer in crisis in the afternoon.

People living with cancer and their unpaid carers do not consistently experience meaningful involvement in treatment decisions. People report leaving appointments confused about what was decided. Clinicians report wanting to do better but lacking time and tools. People from culturally diverse communities, those supporting someone with dementia alongside cancer, and those facing poverty face the highest barriers.

Under the Carers (Scotland) Act 2016, carers have a legal right to be involved in decisions about the person they care for, to have their own needs assessed, and to receive support that allows them to participate fully. In practice, many carers do not experience these rights, and this project exists to close that gap.

This project will not replicate or compete with clinical services. It sits alongside them, filling the gap between what health services can offer and what people living with cancer and those who care for them actually need to feel confident and respected in their care.

A full driving licence and access to a reliable vehicle are essential for this role.

Fife Carers Centre is committed to equality of opportunity and welcomes applications from all sections of the community. We particularly encourage applications from people with lived experience of cancer, caring, or from communities that face barriers to accessing health and care services.

Help shape bereavement support across Scotland

Every day, Cruse Scotland supports people all across Scotland who are grieving the death of someone important to them. Through the compassion and commitment of our highly trained volunteers and staff, we provide bereavement support that helps people navigate one of the most difficult times in their lives.

We're looking for an experienced, compassionate and confident leader to join our Senior Leadership Team as our Head of Client Services.

This is a unique opportunity to lead our national bereavement services, ensuring they remain safe, effective, accessible and responsive while helping shape how we continue to develop and improve support for people across Scotland.

"The support group more than exceeded my expectations. I felt heard, felt safe, felt understood and felt less alone." – Cruse Scotland client May 2026

About the role

Reporting directly to the Chief Executive Officer, you'll provide strategic and operational leadership for Cruse Scotland's client services. You'll lead a team of Area Managers, our Helpline Development Manager and Client Services Co-ordinator, to ensure our core services and projects are delivered consistently and continue to meet the changing needs of the people who rely on us.

This is a busy and varied leadership role. Alongside supporting and developing your managers, you'll oversee service quality, safeguarding, clinical governance, service performance and continuous improvement. You'll contribute to organisational strategy, work closely with the Board and senior colleagues, and use data, feedback and lived experience to help shape future services.

About you

We're looking for someone who combines strategic thinking with practical operational leadership.

You will have experience of leading services, developing managers and driving continuous improvement within psychologically informed, counselling, therapeutic, health, social care or similar environments. You'll be comfortable leading through complexity, making sound decisions, managing safeguarding responsibilities and using data and insight to improve services.

“Cruse Scotland got me to the place in my life I need to be and not blaming myself about my mum’s death”

- Cruse Scotland client March 2026

Most importantly, you'll be someone who leads with compassion, integrity and confidence, building positive relationships and creating an environment where staff and volunteers can thrive.

Why join Cruse Scotland?

This is a role where you'll make a genuine difference - not only to the people who access our services, but to the volunteers and staff who make those services possible.

Our volunteers are at the heart of everything we do. Their commitment, compassion and generosity are truly inspiring, and you'll have the privilege of supporting services that enable them to make such a positive impact across Scotland.

“Volunteering with Cruse Scotland has given me a real sense of connection—both with the clients I support and with my fellow volunteer counsellors, who are incredibly supportive. It’s also strengthened my connection to my local community by allowing me to support people during one of the most difficult times in their lives. Seeing clients feel heard, understood and accepted as they process their grief is incredibly meaningful” – Cruse Scotland volunteer June 2026

You'll also become part of a small but mighty staff team of 18. Although we're based across Scotland with many working remotely much of the time, we make a real effort to stay connected. We meet online every fortnight to share ideas, support one another and celebrate successes, and we come together in person at set times across the year because we know that strong relationships help us do our best work.

“It's been an absolute pleasure working with such a genuinely lovely and dedicated group of people, I'll really miss working with everyone” – employee quote July 2026

If you're looking for a leadership role where you'll have the opportunity to shape services, inspire others and improve the experience of bereaved people across Scotland, we'd love to hear from you.

Who Cares? Scotland is Scotland’s only national independent membership organisation for Care Experienced people. Our strategic vision is to secure a lifetime of equality, respect, and love for Care Experienced people in Scotland.

At the heart of Who Cares? Scotland’s work are the rights of Care Experienced people, and the power of their voices to bring about positive change.

We provide individual lifelong relationship-based independent advocacy and a broad range of imaginative participatory and engagement opportunities for Care Experienced people across Scotland. We work alongside Corporate Parents and communities to broaden understanding and create change. We work with policy makers, leaders, and elected representatives locally and nationally to shape law, policy, and practice, working together to build on the aspirations of The Promiseand secure positive change.

As a project, Communities that Care works to create a world where Care Experienced children, young people, and adults are known, understood, welcomed, celebrated, and loved. The aim of the Communities that Care Team is to educate the public about the reality of care (as told to us by Care Experienced people), challenge stigma around care experience, and create the conditions for children, young people, and adults with care experience to thrive.

We are seeking a passionate and talented communicator to join our Communities that Care Team as a Development Officer. Working to shape, deliver, and evaluate our work in schools nationwide, with a particular focus in Edinburgh, you will provide training and support to educational establishments and organisations. You will also lead on the local participation offer for Care Experienced people within Edinburgh; supporting, developing and facilitating our current group and considering how we grow its reach within the local authority.

You will be welcomed into the team and expected to play a key role in supporting the delivery of our wider Communities that Care work, including Care Aware workforce training to employers and organisations.

As an individual with a background working with children and young people, you are adept at creating and delivering learning, teaching, and project plans, with experience providing dynamic training to a range of audiences. Confident writing reports and evidencing practice and impact, you have excellent interpersonal and communication skills, as well as the ability to develop strong professional relationships. Committed to child and human rights, working inclusively, and with the belief that young people can make transformative change in their lives, you understand how structural barriers, social oppression/liberation and intersectionality shape our world. With a deep knowledge and desire to learn about the issues affecting Care Experienced people, you are keen to help create meaningful positive change, challenge stigma, and to keep The Promise.

There is an expectation that the postholder will have a regular presence within the Edinburgh office to connect with the wider team, and across Edinburgh. Home working is offered as part of our commitment to flexible working and wider travel across Scotland will be necessary. Given the remit of the role and the expectation that team members contribute to our diverse programme of local and national participation groups, some evening and weekend work, including overnight stays, will be required. The role also requires a driving licence and access to a car for business use.

The successful candidate will be joining Who Cares? Scotland at an exciting time, when the voices of those who are in or have experienced care are growing in power, individually and collectively – bringing with them insight, challenge, hope and change. While we would welcome the knowledge gathered through relevant qualifications, we are just as interested in relevant work experience. We welcome and encourage applications from those with experience of care.

If this sounds like the role for you, we would love to hear from you. For an informal conversation about this opportunity please contact Donna Nicholas at dnicholas@whocaresscotland.org.