An exciting opportunity has become available to join Families Outside as our Project Partnership Lead for the Weave Partnership. If you are experienced and passionate about working in partnership and developing the infrastructure to make a lasting difference for families impacted by imprisonment, we want to hear from you.

This role works closely with the Families Outside Director of Services, the Family Support Team, and the Weave Partnership, funded by the Scottish Government’s Whole Family Support Fund. The Weave Partnership is made up of One Parent Families Scotland, Relationships Scotland (along with their 21 Member Services), Families Outside, and Fife Gingerbread - four organisations whose capabilities are complementary, whose values are shared, and whose combined reach would create something new and unique that none of our organisations could achieve alone. The partnership aims to deliver sustained, measurable improvements for single-parent families across Scotland through holistic, place-based whole-family support and, using the new ‘My Life and Me’ framework, it will create a ‘no wrong door’ approach.

Staff Benefits:

• 25 flexible leave days plus 10 public holidays (pro rata)
• 4% matched contribution workplace pension scheme
• Hybrid & flexible working
• Employee Assistance Programme (Health Assured)
• Cycle to Work Scheme
• Laptop and mobile phone for all staff

The Role:

At Families Outside, we're the only national charity in Scotland working solely to support families affected by imprisonment. Joining the Weave Partnership alongside lead partner One Parent Families Scotland, Relationships Scotland, and Fife Gingerbread, the Project Partnership Lead provides the key role to oversee and develop Families Outside’s role within this project. They will:

• Coordinate Families Outside’s involvement in the Weave Partnership at a delivery level.
• Lead the development of evaluation, data capture, and the database in relation to family support, embedding shared Weave Partnership criteria into data gathering and reporting.
• Develop relationships to raise awareness of the Partnership, referral processes, and access to relevant resources for families.
• Engage with key agencies to embed a Whole Family approach and prevention of child poverty.

About You:

We are looking for an individual who is:

• Experienced in working with partner agencies and in developing robust processes for data collection, recording, and evaluation
• Rights-focused and trauma-informed in their work and all they do
• Skilled and knowledgeable in working with people to overcome challenges they face in their day-to-day lives
• A confident and effective contributor to working in partnership with others to meet families’ needs
• Willing and able to travel throughout Scotland to develop and promote the project

If you are an experienced professional with skills in partnership working, data capture, and cross-agency collaboration and are passionate about making a difference for families impacted by imprisonment, then we want to hear from you.

About Us

Families Outside is the only national charity in Scotland that works solely to support families affected by imprisonment. Imprisonment can often have a huge impact on the things that matter most to families: money and secure housing, safe and connected relationships at home and in the community, and the emotional health and wellbeing of families. Families Outside is dedicated to providing a range of practical, social, and emotional support to people with someone in prison that are relationship-based, prison-aware, and family-focused.

The Advice and Information Service is a national support service for single-parent families and professionals across Scotland. It provides multi-channel advice on a wide range of topics, ensuring accessibility and inclusivity.

The Advice & Engagement Worker plays a key role in increasing awareness, accessibility and engagement with the OPFS Advice and Information Service.

Working collaboratively with colleagues, partner organisations and professionals across Scotland, the postholder will promote the service, build effective partnerships and improve access to high-quality advice and information for single-parent families.

Working within the OPFS My Life and Me framework, the postholder will provide high quality advice and information through a range of channels, deliver outreach activities, facilitate online practitioner webinars and advice clinics and build the confidence and knowledge of professionals supporting single-parent families. The role will also identify emerging issues affecting families and contribute to service development, policy and campaigning by highlighting trends and barriers experienced by those accessing the service.

The Advice & Information Service is part of OPFS Support for Families Services, providing holistic support to single parents and their children across Scotland. Our work is guided by the six My Life and Me priority areas

• Money
• Health & Wellbeing
• Home
• Work, Education & Training
• Children
• Relationships

Through a person-centred, strengths-based approach, guided by our organisational values of Justice, Equity, Trust, Collaboration and Compassion, we work alongside families to:

• Involve them in shaping the support they receive.
• Strengthen their skills, confidence and resilience.
• Support them to achieve their goals and aspirations.
• Influence positive change in their lives and communities.
• Challenge the barriers and inequalities that impact them.

The Advice & Engagement Worker will contribute to these outcomes by increasing awareness of OPFS services, ensuring families can access the right support at the right time, strengthening partnership working across Scotland and empowering both parents and professionals with the knowledge and confidence to navigate services and improve outcomes for single-parent families.

Role and Responsibilities:

As an Advice Worker at OPFS you will:

• Work to the agreed priorities of the service, providing clear, compassionate advice on key areas including housing, money, parenting, relationships, health & wellbeing and employment/training.
• Help develop and deliver an outreach programme that promotes OPFS's advice services within communities, partner organisations and professional networks.
• Build and maintain positive relationships with statutory, voluntary and community organisations to increase awareness of the service and improve referral pathways.
• Plan and deliver engaging online practitioner webinars on topics relevant to supporting single-parent families.
• Facilitate regular online advice clinics, providing advice, guidance and support to parents across Scotland.
• Promote OPFS services through presentations, networking events, partnership meetings, outreach clinics and any other community engagement opportunities.
• Work collaboratively with colleagues to identify opportunities to improve access to advice for underrepresented or harder-to-reach communities.
• Contribute to and deliver advice over the digital advice channels, ensuring information is accessible and responsive to the needs of single-parent families.
• Signpost single parents and professionals to relevant services and resources.
• Accurately record all interactions, outreach activity and engagement using Salesforce CRM and other agreed systems.
• Participate in monitoring, evaluation and training to support continuous improvement and demonstrate the impact of outreach and promotional activity.
• Maintain confidentiality and uphold safeguarding, data protection and health & safety policies.
• Contribute to team meetings, service development and quality assurance activities.
• Promote equality, diversity and inclusive practice in all aspects of your work.
• Ensure the voices and experiences of single parents inform your advice, outreach activity and contribute to OPFS's policy and advocacy work.
• Demonstrate flexibility, a positive attitude and a commitment to OPFS's core values: Justice, Equity, Trust, Compassion and Collaboration.

The job description is a broad picture of the post at the time of preparation. It is not an exhaustive list of all possible duties, and it is recognised that jobs change and evolve over time.

Personal Specification

We're looking for someone who is passionate about supporting single-parent families and confident engaging with communities, professionals and partner organisations. You'll enjoy building relationships, sharing knowledge and helping improve access to advice services across Scotland.

Essential

• Experience in an advice, support, community engagement or customer-facing role.
• Experience of delivering presentations, workshops, training sessions or group information sessions, either online or in person.
• Interest in and an awareness of topics including housing, benefits, parenting, wellbeing and employment.
• Understanding of the challenges single parents face, or a strong desire to learn and put this into practice.
• Some knowledge and understanding of both UK and Scottish benefits systems.
• Demonstratable experience of building positive relationships with partners, stakeholders or community organisations.
• Ability to organise and deliver outreach or engagement activities.
• Must respect sensitive information and understand the need for it to be handled with care and professionalism.

Practical Skills

• Strong communication skills that are clear, engaging, empathetic and nonjudgmental.
• Confidence presenting information to groups and facilitating discussions online.
• Good listening and questioning skills to understand people's needs.
• Ability to build productive relationships with professionals and partner organisations.
• Good organisational skills with the ability to plan and prioritise competing demands.
• Confident using IT tools (Word, Outlook, Excel, Office 365, Microsoft Teams) and open to learning systems such as Salesforce.
• Able to work independently while contributing positively to a collaborative team.

Personal Qualities

• Enthusiasm for promoting services and improving access to advice.
• Empathy and respect for the lived experiences of single parents.
• A confident and approachable communicator.
• A team player who is flexible and open to change.
• Self-motivated and committed to continuous learning.
• A strong belief in equality, inclusion and diversity.
• A non-judgmental approach to supporting families from all backgrounds.
• Alignment with OPFS values: Justice, Equity, Trust, Compassion and Collaboration.

Desirable

• Experience delivering welfare rights advice or undertaking benefit calculations.
• Experience delivering webinars, online learning or practitioner development sessions.
• Experience planning and delivering community outreach or promotional campaigns.
• Familiarity with Salesforce, SharePoint or multi-channel advice platforms.
• Knowledge of partnership working across the third sector and public services in Scotland.
• A clean driving licence and access to a car.

Terms & Conditions

Confirmation of Appointment: Confirmation of appointment is subject to satisfactory completion of a 3-month probationary period, two references and a PVG check.

Salary: £29600 - £34042 (pro rata)

Hours of Work: up to 35 hours per week (typically from 9.15am – 4.45pm)

Holidays: Annual leave entitlement is 25 days and 12 Public Holidays (pro rata).

Pension: You will be auto enrolled in our pension scheme with a 3% contribution from you and 7% contribution from OPFS.

Training, Support and Supervision: You will receive induction training and frequent support in the first three months. Thereafter you will receive regularly scheduled individual support and supervision and annual appraisals. Regular team meetings will be held, and staff have access to internal and external training.

Equal Opportunities and Family Friendly Employment: OPFS aims to be an equal opportunity and family friendly employer. OPFS has Investors in People GOLD status.

The Financial Wellbeing Worker will play a key role in delivering OPFS’s Whole Family Support offer, providing high-quality, person-centred and strengths-based income maximisation and financial wellbeing support to single parents and their families across Scotland.

Working within the OPFS My Life and Me framework, the postholder will support parents to understand their financial circumstances, maximise household income, manage essential expenditure and build financial resilience.

The role will involve working with single parents experiencing financial pressures including low income, benefit changes, debt, rising household costs, insecure employment and childcare costs.

Key responsibilities

• Provide high-quality one-to-one income maximisation and financial wellbeing support.
• Assess household income, expenditure, financial circumstances and priorities.
• Identify opportunities to maximise income through welfare benefits, grants and other financial support.
• Support parents with welfare benefit applications, renewals and changes of circumstances where appropriate.
• Undertake benefit entitlement checks and calculations.
• Provide early intervention and preventative financial wellbeing support, helping parents identify and address financial pressures before they escalate into crisis or unmanageable debt.
• Support parents to budget effectively and identify opportunities to reduce household expenditure and essential living costs.
• Provide Better Off in Work calculations to help parents understand the financial implications of employment or changes to working hours.
• Support parents to understand the financial impact of changes in circumstances.
• Identify and respond appropriately to immediate financial hardship, including food,fuel and other essential needs, supporting parents to access relevant crisis assistance, grants and emergency provision.
• Provide income maximisation and financial wellbeing support within the agreed scope and competency of the role, identifying where specialist welfare rights, debt or regulated advice is required and ensuring timely referral to the appropriate OPFS or external service

Supporting single parents and families

• Build positive, trusting and respectful relationships with single parents, recognising their individual circumstances, strengths and aspirations.
• Use a person centred, strengths based and trauma informed approach.
• Work alongside parents to identify financial goals and develop realistic action plans.
• Support parents to build confidence, knowledge and skills in managing household finances.
• The postholder will take a holistic, whole-family approach, recognising the links between financial wellbeing, employment, housing, childcare, health and wider family circumstances. They will identify wider needs, strengths and goals and connect parents to appropriate OPFS and partner support, ensuring families can access the right support at the right time.
• Empower parents to make informed financial decisions and develop greater financial resilience.
• Recognise the wider impact of financial hardship on parents, children and family wellbeing and identify needs which may require support beyond the presenting financial issue.
• Take a whole-family approach, connecting parents to appropriate OPFS services and external support including family support, employability, childcare, welfare rights and debt services.
• Identify safeguarding, wellbeing or other concerns and respond appropriately in line with OPFS procedures.

Information, advice and signposting

• Provide accurate and accessible financial and benefits information within the remit of the role.
• Keep up to date with changes to welfare benefits, Scottish social security and relevant financial support.
• Make appropriate internal and external referrals to specialist services
• Work closely with OPFS Debt Service, Advice and Information, Family Support, Employability and other services to provide coordinated support.
• Maintain knowledge of relevant national and local services and resources.

National outreach and partnership working

• Deliver income maximisation support nationally across Scotland through face-to-face, telephone and digital approaches.
• Undertake proactive outreach and develop flexible and accessible approaches to engage single parents who may experience barriers to accessing traditional advice and support services.
• Develop effective relationships with statutory, voluntary and community organisations.
• Represent OPFS at relevant partnership meetings, events and networks.
• Promote the OPFS income maximisation service and wider support available to single parents.

Administration, monitoring and evaluation

• Maintain accurate, confidential and timely case records in line with OPFS policies and data protection requirements.
• Record outcomes and progress and contribute to monitoring, evaluation, case studies and funder reporting.
• Record evidence of the financial impact of the service, including income maximised and savings achieved where appropriate.
• Contribute to reporting requirements associated with the Whole Family Support Third Sector Delivery Fund.

Capture parent feedback and identify emerging issues affecting single parents.

Service development

• Contribute to the development and continuous improvement of OPFS’s national income maximisation offer.
• Share learning, good practice and emerging issues with colleagues and managers.
• Contribute to developing accessible financial wellbeing information, resources and workshops.

Health, safety and safeguarding

• Comply with OPFS policies and procedures relating to safeguarding, confidentiality, equality, diversity, inclusion, health and safety and data protection.
• Promote the wellbeing and safety of single parents and their children and ensure concerns are appropriately identified, recorded and escalated.
• Maintain appropriate professional boundaries when working with parents and families.

General responsibilities

• Attend team meetings, supervision, training and development opportunities.
• Share learning and good practice and contribute to effective team working.
• Promote equality, diversity and inclusion in all aspects of the role.
• Undertake any other duties commensurate with the post as requested by the Service Manager.

OPFS is the lead partner and accountable body for the Weave Partnership, offering single parent families, and other priority family groups, a single, strengths based plan built around one trusted relationship, on the principle of ‘no wrong door’.

The Weave Project Lead will support the Head of Service (Weave) by leading the operational coordination, implementation and monitoring of the Weave Partnership. The postholder will ensure effective governance, strong partnership working, consistent use of the My Life and Me framework, robust referral and delivery arrangements, clear

evidence of outcomes for families, and high-quality reporting and learning for the Scottish Government, partners and wider networks.

Key responsibilities

Partnership Governance and Operational Accountability

• Lead the day-to-day coordination of Weave Partnership governance arrangements, supporting the Head of Service to ensure the Steering Group, operational delivery structures and partner protocols function effectively.
• Maintain clear action tracking, decision records, escalation routes and accountability mechanisms across OPFS and partner organisations.
• Support the Head of Service in preparing governance reports, briefing papers and updates for senior leaders, funders and partners.

Programme Delivery and Implementation

• Manage implementation of the Weave Partnership delivery plan across target local authority areas and national delivery channels.
• Coordinate delivery activity across in-person, telephone and digital support routes, ensuring services are accessible, joined-up and responsive.
• Monitor progress against milestones, deliverables, risks and dependencies, escalating issues to the Head of Service where required.

My Life and Me framework

• Coordinate implementation of the My Life and Me framework across partner organisations as the shared Whole Family Support planning and outcomes framework.
• Support partners to embed consistent practice, recording, review and reporting arrangements linked to MLAM.
• Support OPFS Heads of Support for Families to embed MLAM across all delivery services.
• Gather evidence that the framework is being used to support strengths-based, familycentred planning and outcome measurement.

Partnership Working and Referral Pathways

• Strengthen warm referral pathways, joint working arrangements and operational coordination between participating organisations.
• Act as a key contact for partners on delivery processes, shared systems, meetings, data collection and operational problem-solving.
• Identify gaps or barriers in partnership working and support practical solutions with the Head of Service and operational leads.

Reaching Priority Families and Reducing Barriers

• Monitor evidence that support is reaching low-income single parent families and families at highest risk of poverty.
• Support partners to extend access for families affected by family breakdown, imprisonment, rurality and other barriers to services.
• Use monitoring data and partner feedback to identify under-reached groups and inform improvements to access and delivery.

Financial Inclusion and Progression Pathways

• Coordinate evidence of family access to income maximisation, welfare rights advice, debt advice, child maintenance support and other financial inclusion interventions.
• Support partners to evidence access to childcare, employability, education and training opportunities.
• Ensure reporting captures how practical support contributes to improved family outcomes and poverty reduction.

Outcomes, Monitoring and Evaluation

• Oversee collection and collation of monitoring, evaluation and learning evidence across the partnership.
• Track outcomes relating to family wellbeing, parental confidence, resilience, relationships, social connectedness and coordinated support.
• Prepare monitoring and learning outputs that demonstrate outcomes achieved, lessons learned and opportunities for wider application of the model.

Learning, Reporting and System Influence

• Support the Head of Service to share evidence and learning with the Scottish Government, funded partners and relevant networks.
• Coordinate learning events, partner reviews and continuous improvement activities.
• Contribute to wider system learning on Whole Family Support, anti-poverty practice and effective partnership delivery.