Overview:

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 service operates Monday to Friday, 9:30 am to 4:00 pm, excluding Christmas and Easter holidays.

The Project Lead for Advice and Information Service will play a key role in supporting the A&I Service Manager with the day-to-day management, operations and delivery of the OPFS Advice and Information Service. They will help ensure the service is delivered effectively, supporting staff, maintaining high-quality service provision and contributing to the ongoing development and continuous improvement of the service.

Working within the OPFS "My Life and Me" framework, the postholder will provide operational leadership, support and supervision to staff, ensure high-quality service delivery and undertake quality assurance activities. The Project Lead will be expected to deputise for the A&I Service Manager when required.

The Advice & Information Service is part of OPFS Support for Families Services, which provides holistic support to single parents and their children.

Our work is guided by the six My Life and Me priority areas: Money, Health & Wellbeing, Home, Work, Education & Training, Children, and Relationships.

Through a person-centred, strengths-based approach and guided by our organisational values and our strategic pillars, 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 support we offer includes:

Money

• Support to maximise income, improve financial wellbeing, access benefits and grants, manage debt and respond to financial crises.

Health & Wellbeing

• Emotional and practical support to improve mental health and wellbeing, including counselling, therapeutic interventions, wellbeing programmes and support to reduce isolation and build resilience.

Home

• Support with housing-related issues, advocacy and access to specialist services to help families maintain safe and secure housing.

Work, Education & Training

• Pre-employability and progression support, including confidence building, skills development, volunteering opportunities, training pathways and tailored support to overcome barriers to employment and learning.

Children

• Family support and group programmes that promote positive outcomes for children, strengthen parenting capacity, support child development and provide opportunities for children to participate in activities that enhance wellbeing.

Relationships

• One-to-one and group support that helps parents build positive relationships, strengthen family connections, develop peer support networks and reduce social isolation.

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.

Are you passionate about play, and ready to lead the practicalities of delivery?

We are seeking a Team Leader to coordinate and deliver high-quality, self-directed play opportunities across Midlothian. This is a frontline role, combining practical delivery with day-to-day coordination and some line management.

About Play Midlothian

Play Midlothian is a registered charity (no. SC025474) working to enable every child in Midlothian to thrive through play by creating opportunities, removing barriers and addressing inequalities. We have an office base at the One Dalkeith Business Hub in central Dalkeith, but deliver services throughout Midlothian, and if commissioned, beyond.

About the Role

On appointment, the postholder will lead Out2Play (enabling children to play outside in greenspaces close to their homes) and some of our Play in Mind sessions (supporting children’s mental health through adventurous play in woodlands).

The postholder will also staff other sessions run by Play Midlothian, working across each of our services. We champion self-directed play, with a focus on loose parts, and use varied community settings to create rich play opportunities. A high proportion of sessions take place outdoors, all year round.

Travel and transportation of play resources to multiple sites across Midlothian is required for successful delivery of our services. Most sessions take place after school hours and at weekends, with some during the school day, so flexibility is required, though we share out weekend working on a rota so that everyone gets predictable weekends off.

This role would suit someone with playwork, youth work or family support experience who is ready to step into frontline management — or an existing manager looking for a values-led, varied, community-based role.

If you are enthusiastic about enabling children to play in their own ways, we would love to hear from you.

Are you an experienced Money or Welfare Benefits Advisor – we want to hear from you! …

This is an exciting opportunity to work within our Money Advice Team as part of our Money, debt, benefits and Energy advice delivery, supporting our additional services across the charity.

Our Money Advice service works alongside families to address the challenges and risks which may have led to vulnerability, promote connection to their local communities, and improve financial stability and resilience. Our aim is to support communties to become more resilient and a place where children feel safe, valued, understood and supported.

The Money Advice advisor will support local teams offering support, community connection, and expert benefit, energy and debt advice. This will enable families to resolve debt and money problems, become more financially resilient and break the cycle of poverty.

A priority for the Money Advice advisor will be to increase the capacity of our current service to provide Type I and II Money Advice in one of the most deprived areas in Scotland.

You will work as part of our National Money Advice team offering remote advice to families across Scotland by telephone or webchat. You will support families within their homes, deliver workshops within the community and in schools, and offer drop-in sessions within the community.

If you have experience of delivering money, and debt advice, understand the impact trauma and adversity can have on children and families, and believe that you can apply this to your practice, we want to hear from you.

This is a full time, 35 hours post funded until the 31 March 2029 with the intention to explore funding options beyond this date. Hours to be worked flexibly to suit the needs of families, including evenings and weekends as required.

What we offer

• A workplace with values of with love, with purpose and with strength
• 40 days annual leave, inclusive of bank holidays
• Pension scheme and wellbeing support
• Flexible and hybrid working arrangements
• Access to Westfield Health, giving colleagues and their families confidential counselling support, wellbeing resources, and access to health and lifestyle benefits to support physical and mental wellbeing.
• Blue Light card discount
• A Fair Work accredited workplace

Our Values

Living our values, you will help create a workplace where our people can thrive, ensuring we deliver the best possible support to children and families.

With love, we put children first.

With purpose, we transform lives together.

With strength, we do whatever it takes to protect Scotland’s children.