Community Support Worker

Here at the Royal Society for Blind Children we believe that every blind young person should have the chance to live life without limits.

If you are looking for a challenging yet rewarding role then look no further, you’ll be working with a group of young people who need guidance, and your skills will enable them to be their best selves. You will design, plan and deliver activities and support vision impaired children and young people in setting and achieving their goals.
With our offices based at London Bridge opposite the infamous Shard, and with the role allowing you to travel around London, every day will be different!

You will ideally come from a Youth Work, Rehabilitation, Social Work or Health and Education background with a NVQ level 3 qualification or above in a related field.
The ideal candidate will have:
• Excellent interpersonal skills and positively engage with children and young people, supporting their personal development
• Ability to positively engage with CYP and support their personal development
• Experience in setting up and delivering community programmes for disabled children and young people
• Understanding of the difficulties and challenges faced by children and young people and a knowledge of inclusion for them in a variety of community settings

In return we offer a competitive range of benefits including a generous annual leave allowance of 27 days (rising to 28 days after 3 years’ service) + bank holidays, Employee Assistance Programme, Perkbox, flexible working opportunities, 3% contribution towards pension, and season ticket loan. We are a welcoming, diverse and inclusive workforce and are a Disability Confident Employer. We also hold the Investors in People Silver Award.

Primary Objectives

To deliver a range of community-based interventions for vision impaired children and young people to support their personal development. This will include (but is not restricted to) the following responsibilities:

• Design, plan and deliver activities for groups of vision impaired children and young people, including residential and holiday programmes, weekend Health and Wellbeing Clubs and Social and Independence groups
• Support vision impaired young people with goal setting and achieving outcomes
• Support the recruitment of young blind and partially sighted young people who might benefit from the project.
• Support young people to be signposted into mainstream leisure and recreational activities

These activities are arranged at different times to suit prospective participants and occur primarily outside standard office hours, including weekends and evenings

To promote the wellbeing of vision impaired children and young people by:

• encouraging participation in a range of community activities
• promoting the development of social skills
• encouraging choice and decision making
• supporting children and young people develop skills for independent living


Key Tasks and Main Duties:


• Facilitating engagement of vision impaired children and young people in range of community-based activities that support their personal development
• Lead on recruitment for all activities working closely with RSBC’s engagement team and externally with a range of bodies including disability organisations, local authorities, schools and colleges to foster partnerships and recruitment opportunities.
• Ensure all delivery is in line with the quality assurance framework
• Complete project paperwork including session plans and risk assessments, attendance forms, evaluation forms and sessional records updating internal databases as appropriate.
• Ensure that health and safety is foremost through completing venue and risk assessments as required.
• Ensure that safeguarding is foremost throughout all activities
• Prepare regular updates on the programme and performance for management information
• Utilise the relevant resources and facilities within budget with support from Deputy Community Service Manager.
• Maintain and update information on all aspects of our programme on our database.
• Undertake other administrative tasks related to the delivery of the programme
• Ensure that equality and diversity is embedded in all activities


PERSON SPECIFICATION

Professional qualifications:
The ideal candidate will come from a Youth Work, Rehabilitation, Social Work Community Health or Education background, with a qualification at NVQ Level 3 or above in a related field

Essential knowledge, skills and experience:

Knowledge

• Knowledge of inclusion for disabled children and young people in a variety of community settings
• Familiarity with difficulties and challenges that confront disabled children and young people
• Knowledge of public and community services available to disabled young people
• Knowledge of the principles of equal opportunities, health and safety and safeguarding


Skills
• Ability to engage positively with children and young people to support their personal development
• Excellent inter-personal skills: able to communicate assertively to the team and with impact, maximising resources; able to build positive relationships quickly and easily with a diverse group of young people; able to exercise diplomacy at all levels whilst working across the team
• Ability to facilitate participation in social, leisure and recreational activities for participants with a range of abilities and interests
• Ability to establish positive relationships with representative of partner organisations and service providers
• Ability to put into practice the principles of personal safety and safeguarding
• Ability to provide management support and guidance to volunteers and other staff assigned to the project
• Ability to work both autonomously and as part of a team, in a busy office maximising resources.
• Innovative and pro-active approach to problem solving
• Excellent time management with an ability to manage workloads, set priorities and meet strict deadlines
• Excellent administration and ICT skills; able to use standard IT systems such as Microsoft Office


Experience

• Experience in setting up and delivering community programmes for disabled children and young people
• Experience of goal setting with children and young people, recording and monitoring progress to prescribed deadlines in line with departmental processes.
• Experience of working in partnership with other organisations to deliver agreed outcomes
• Successful track record of managing volunteers to support service delivery
• Experience in managing databases and proficient in using MS Excel and database software


Conditions of the post

• Weekend work to support or monitor weekend activities with children and young people
• Travel regularly across London and occasionally to other parts of the country to meetings and for service delivery