We have an exciting opportunity for an experienced Project & Systems Manager to take a lead role in iCare: Identifying Carers, Advancing Recognition and Equality, an ambitious five-year system- change project funded by The National Lottery Community Fund (TNLCF).

iCare aims to improve earlier and more consistent identification of unpaid carers across the Lothians, addressing barriers to support and helping to create meaningful and lasting change in practice. The project will develop an early carer identification blueprint, strengthen good carer conversations using the Adult Carer Support Plan (ACSP) framework, and co-design and implement a new integrated digital carer identification platform.

Working with iCare Project Coordinators in East, West and Midlothian (the iCare Project Team), and under the direction of the iCare Project Steering Group, you will lead and coordinate delivery across the project. You will line-manage VOCAL’s Midlothian iCare Project Coordinator and provide professional leadership and coordination across the wider iCare team. The East and West Lothian Project Coordinators will be employed and line managed by partner organisations Carers of East Lothian and Carers of West Lothian respectively.

This is a senior, hands-on role with key responsibilities that include:

• leading the day-to-day delivery of iCare across the Lothians, ensuring delivery remains focused on agreed plans, milestones, outcomes and funder requirements;
• coordinating the different strands of the programme, managing priorities, dependencies, risks and issues;
• supporting the iCare Project Steering Group and translating agreed priorities and decisions into effective delivery;
• leading monitoring, evaluation and reporting, using evidence and feedback to understand progress and support continuous improvement;
• developing strong and effective partnerships across health, social care, the third sector, research, digital and community organisations;
• championing consistent, high-quality approaches to early carer identification, good carer conversations, ACSPs and preventative support;
• ensuring carers meaningfully influence the project through the Carers Assembly and wider inclusive engagement; and
• ensuring that new digital approaches complement rather than replace, non-digital routes to support.

As iCare develops a digital platform, you will also help to ensure that VOCAL’s own systems, processes and practice develop alongside it. This will include translating carer, practitioner and organisational requirements into practical system and process improvements and ensuring that VOCAL’s case-management arrangements, recording practices and carer journeys develop appropriately.

About you

We are looking for someone who can bring people, practice and systems together and turn an ambitious vision into practical, coordinated change. You will have experience of leading and managing projects, services or programmes and supporting organisational, service or systems change.

A confident and collaborative partnership worker, you will be skilled at building relationships, bringing people with you and engaging others in a respectful and inclusive way. You will also have experience of working alongside digital or technical colleagues to develop services or systems, from defining operational requirements and co-design through to testing and implementation.

You will have a good understanding of unpaid caring and the impact it can have on carers’ health and wellbeing, alongside knowledge of the carer support landscape and relevant legislation. This will include an understanding of the health and social care system in Lothian and Scotland, and how to influence and support practice change within complex systems.

We have an exciting opportunity for a confident and organised Project Coordinator to help deliver iCare: Identifying Carers, Advancing Recognition and Equality. Funded by The National Lottery Community Fund (TNLCF), iCare is an ambitious five-year system-change project.

Working with carers, practitioners and NHS partners, the project will address barriers to support and drive changes in practice to improve earlier and more consistent identification of unpaid carers across the Lothians. It will support the development of an early carer identification blueprint, strengthen good carer conversations using the Adult Carer Support Plan (ACSP) framework, and co-design and implement a new integrated digital carer identification platform.

The postholder will join a project team comprising an iCare Project & Systems Manager, based within VOCAL, and Project Coordinators covering Midlothian, East Lothian and West Lothian. The East and West Lothian Project Coordinators will be employed and managed by Carers of East Lothian and Carers of West Lothian respectively. All four roles will work closely together to deliver shared priorities, promote consistent practice and support learning across the Lothians.

The Project Coordinator for Midlothian will undertake a range of duties, including:

• Supporting the day-to-day delivery of iCare by maintaining clear work plans, action logs and records, and ensuring effective follow-up across project workstreams.
• Building positive working relationships with the wider project team, carers, VOCAL colleagues, NHS and community partners, and other carer centres.
• Supporting meaningful carer involvement through the development and coordination of a Carers Assembly, ensuring that carers lived experience helps shape project priorities, changes in practice and digital development.
• Planning and supporting focus groups, workshops, briefings and training sessions with carers and practitioners.
• Supporting co-design and user testing of a digital carer identification platform, while ensuring digital options complement rather than replace non-digital support.
• Gathering feedback and data, and contributing to project learning, evaluation and reporting to the funder.

About you

You will understand unpaid caring and the impact it can have on carers’ health and wellbeing. You will also have a good understanding of the carer support landscape, including the role of Adult Carer Support Plans and the responsibilities of statutory health and social care partners. You will bring experience of supporting a project or service, working collaboratively with others, and engaging people in a respectful and inclusive way. You will also have strong organisational and administrative skills, clear written and verbal communication, digital confidence, and the ability to hold sensitive, person-centred and outcomes-focused conversations.

Are you passionate about helping people to live a better life? Do you want to work for a charity where your health and wellbeing matter just as much as the people you support? Do you want to be part of a trauma-informed team where you will be supported to develop creative and flexible ways of working?

At LinkLiving, our values and people are at the heart of everything we do including how we recruit our staff. It is important for us to find people who share our values, which are:

• Empathy (listen to and understand an individual’s needs and circumstances)
• Respect (treat others the way they wish to be treated)
• Integrity (be honest and have strong moral principles)
• Caring (show kindness and concern for others)

LinkLiving is a Scottish health and wellbeing charity that supports people to manage or overcome the effects of negative life experiences (including trauma, mental health challenges, poverty and inequality) so that they can build on their strengths and aspirations in order to live their best possible lives. We support people through a range of models including:

· Personal development and employability programmes

· Self-help coaching

· Supported accommodation

· Care at home

· Housing support

· Befriending

· Social cafes

The Service

LinkLiving’s HoME service (Help on Managing Everything) provides an intensive housing management service to Link Housing Association tenants who are struggling to maintain their tenancies.

The Job

The purpose of the job is to provide practical and emotional support to people who have been referred to the service who’s condition of property requires specialist support. Through building positive relationships with tenants, you will work with them to maintain their home, working closely with Housing Officers as well as the wider Mental Health & Wellbeing Services team.

You will be responsible for the provision of individually tailored one to one support. The service you provide will focus on the safety and well-being of clients creating a supportive environment which to address the issues they are experiencing with their tenancy. This role will require a high level of multiagency working.

About You

You’ll be someone with a good standard of general education. With a genuine understanding of the challenges faced by individuals with complex needs, you will have experience supporting clients with a range of issues and demonstrate a strong grasp of the skills required to live independently.

Your positive, can-do attitude will shine through in your hands-on approach to providing practical support, while your non-judgemental mindset and commitment to embracing diversity will be at the heart of how you work. You’ll bring excellent communication skills—written, verbal and digital—and be comfortable using IT systems, including online client management platforms.

You will have knowledge of available grants and resources for individuals on low incomes. Adaptability is key, as is the ability to build meaningful relationships and partnerships with other voluntary and statutory organisations.

You’ll be a proactive team player who can work openly and honestly within a team setting, while also being confident in prioritising and managing both your own workload. Reflective practice will be important to you—you’ll welcome feedback and support to ensure continuous improvement in your work.

A full driving licence and access to your own vehicle is essential for this role.

What’s in it for you?

The benefits of being a LinkLiving employee (subject to the policies and benefit terms and conditions) include:

· Competitive salary, reviewed annually, and opportunity for annual performance related salary increases and discretionary non-consolidated pay awards, subject to terms of the scheme

· 35 days’ holiday per year (inclusive of public holidays) pro rata plus additional 3 days pro rata after 3 years’ service

· opportunity to buy and sell holiday

· enhanced company sick and family friendly pay

· access to paid SVQ qualifications and a wide range of learning and development opportunities

· funded Disclosure Scotland and Scottish Social Services Council memberships

· defined contribution pension scheme with generous employer contributions plus salary exchange and additional voluntary contribution options

· access to a Salary Exchange car leasing scheme, subject to the terms of the scheme

· life assurance scheme providing death in service benefits

· healthcare cash plan for employees (and dependents) to support health and wellbeing plus discounts on shopping, restaurants, and other services

· employee assistance programme for employees and their immediate household dependants to support health, mental and financial well-being

· access to purchase annual corporate clothing vouchers

· annual flu vaccination

· access to a credit union savings and borrowing scheme

· cycle to work scheme

For a full list of benefits available to employees, please visit the Link Living website.

This role is subject to PVG membership under the Disclosure (Scotland) Act 2020.

Individuals who are barred from working with children or protected adults will not be considered for this position. Link will meet the cost of any new PVG scheme membership or membership update.

Established in 1944, One Parent Families Scotland (OPFS) is the leading charity working with single parent families in Scotland. We provide expert advice, practical support and campaign with parents to make their voices heard to change the systems, policies and attitudes that disadvantage single parent families. We work alongside single parents and their families, placing them at the centre of everything we do. Creating ways to overcome barriers, changing their lives and

fulfilling their potential. We also celebrate the many achievements of single parents and their children.

Our vision is to see a Scotland where single parent families are celebrated in all their diversity, are treated fairly and live free from discrimination and poverty. Our mission is to amplify the voices of single parent families in their unique role as sole carers and providers and together challenge stigma, poverty and inequality to achieve change.

Our values are trust, equity, justice, collaboration and compassion. These are the principles or standards that we consider important in life. They shape behaviour and guide our decisions and actions.

Our strategic objectives shape and guide all roles at OPFS. They are the pillars that underpin all our work. We all will:

1. Support single parents to build on their strengths and attributes to achieve their goals.
2. Strengthen single parent families’ wellbeing, enabling children to be happy and thrive.
3. Influence policies to eradicate child poverty taking an intersectional, equalities approach to policy making.
4. Involve single parents, experts by experience, to co-produce OPFS services and policy priorities.
5. Challenge societal attitudes and behaviours to fully support and respect single parent families.

About this role

We're looking for an experience Research Officer to join our Policy, Participation and External Relations team. This is an exciting opportunity to drive forward research projects, produce compelling findings, recommendations and high quality impact reports and webinars that bring our findings to life. We're looking for a creative and insightful person who is passionate about creating a Scotland where single parent families can thrive.

For more information, please download the Job Description & Person Specification below.