Thanks again for your interest in joining the VAL team, and I look forward to reading your application soon good luck!

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1 Dear candidate, Could you be our new Policy and Communications Coordinator? This is an exciting time at Voluntary Action Lewisham as we embark on a journey to create a new offer for civil society in our borough, building on our track record of impact and success I hope you ll be keen to join us in this important role and help us achieve our ambitions for our borough. VAL isn t a new organisation we re celebrating our 50th birthday this year, and we re proud of what we ve achieved together over this time. As we move forward into new times and meet fresh challenges, we know that the needs of our communities and the volunteers and organisations who work with them are changing, and that the external environment is also changing regularly and rapidly. In response to this, we are designing a new service offer, to ensure we re as effective at supporting social action and civil society in Lewisham over the coming years as we have been over the last fifty. Enclosed with this letter you ll find details about our ambition, the job description and person specification for the role, together with our application form and details of how to apply. If you re interested in joining us then return your completed application to Sophie Shoults, our Business Development Manager, by to sophie@valewisham.org.uk by 12 noon, Wednesday 4 October If you re successful in making our shortlist then I ll be in touch to invite you to interview during week commencing Monday 9 October 2017 (if there are any days that week that would cause you any problems please just note this when you return your application to us). Thanks again for your interest in joining the VAL team, and I look forward to reading your application soon good luck! Best wishes, Tony Nickson Chief Executive

2 Voluntary Action Lewisham and the Policy and Communications Coordinator role Who are we? Over the last 50 years we ve been supporting the voluntary, community and social enterprise sector in the London Borough of Lewisham to have a voice, to strengthen its capacity and impact, and to collaborate, innovate and respond to the needs of our communities. We re proud of our history, but we want to be even prouder of the organisation we are becoming, and of what we achieve together next. We re using this track record to create a vibrant and dynamic offer, ensuring that Lewisham s full civil society gets the support it needs to thrive and by civil society we mean we re shifting to work with everyone from individual volunteers and activists through to the largest charitable organisations based in our borough, using the definition from The Way Ahead report: Civil society is where people take action to improve their own lives or the lives of others and act where government or the private sector don t. Civil society is driven by the values of fairness and equality, and enables people to feel valued and to belong. It includes formal organisations such as voluntary and community organisations, informal groups of people who join together for a common purpose and individuals who take action to make their community a better place to live. We are emerging from a period of change with a new vision, mission and focus for the future, with a new staffing structure and new plans in place you ll be joining us at a critical point when we re reshaping what we do and moving towards a successful future. What do we want to do? Our vision is to put Lewisham s people and communities at the heart of our borough. Our focus is on supporting a thriving civil society in Lewisham that achieves improved outcomes for everyone our voluntary, community and social enterprise sectors, our volunteers, and our communities. We ll be delivering this work through nine key work streams: involve getting communities involved in co-producing an understanding of need and what must happen to make Lewisham better, stronger and more sustainable introduce understanding and connecting people, groups and formal organisations bringing people together to achieve change initiate identifying needs and encouraging others to act sparking collaborations and starting discussions to get solutions incubate providing seedbed space (physical and intellectual) for emerging groups to tackle new and changing needs inspire showcasing excellence, developing new ideas, sharing learning from within and outside Lewisham

3 invest equipping civil society with the skills, knowledge and resources to make a difference inform sharing data on needs and policy developments with Lewisham groups, and out to local decision makers and the London Hub influence championing the role of the sector, the needs and strengths of local communities, and helping strategic people make better decisions innovate be a centre of excellence for civil society support, piloting new ways of working to achieve positive change How does the Policy and Communications Coordinator role fit into this vision? You ll be able to read more about the role in the job description that follows, but broadly the responsibilities of the role are around: Policy and research staying abreast of developments that will affect civil society, and making sure that information on these is shared with the people who need to know, through targeting policy briefings and ensuring these are relevant and tailored to our local sector Training representatives working with people who are representing their communities or parts of our sector on boards with the local authority or others, ensuring they get trained on their roles and are able to get the support they need to be effective representatives Network facilitation leading our work on the networks and forums we support, such as our Children and Young People s Forum and our Equalities Working Group, bringing together people from across civil society to participate in these forums and that they are relevant and well-facilitated so that the sector can work well together Communications ensuring the work of VAL is well understood, that your intelligence on policy developments is shared effectively, and that we are reaching all parts of the local sector you ll be doing this through co-ordinating our work internally and managing our outsourced communications specialists (from web design to social media) You can see how the post relates to the rest of the team in the diagram on the next page. How can I find out more? You can find out more about our recent work on our website, and via our accounts on the Charity Commission website. If you ve got any questions on the role you can get in touch with our Chief Executive, Tony Nickson, tony@valewisham.org.uk. How do I apply? Complete the application form included with this pack and return it to our Business Development Manager, Sophie Shoults, by to sophie@valewisham.org.uk by the deadline of 12 noon, Wednesday 4 October Your application will be reviewed by our shortlisting panel, and candidates making it through to the next stage will be invited to interview in week commencing 9 October 2017 if there are any days that week that you would not be able to attend for interview please note this in the cover note when you submit your application to us.

4 Our team The following diagram shows how the role fits into the team in the chart the green boxes represent volunteers, the orange boxes are where there are specialist consultants and associates assisting with our work, and the blue boxes represent paid members of staff: Trustee Board Chief Executive (0.4 fte) Connections Manager Business Development Manager Specialist Adviser - Development Specialist Adviser - Ambition Connector Policy & Communications Coordinator (0.8 fte) Consultants and specialist trainers Consultants and specialist trainers Connector volunteers Communications support Finance & Administration Officer (0.6 fte) Administration Apprentice

5 The job description Job title: Policy and Communications Coordinator Reporting to: Connections Manager Hours: 0.8 full-time-equivalent (28 hours per week) Salary: 32,000 per annum (pro rata) Holidays: 26 days per annum, pro rata (plus pro rata bank and public holidays) Purpose of job Strengthen the voice of civil society in Lewisham by ensuring that: Lewisham s civil society is up to date with policy developments; people representing civil society locally on strategic boards have the skills they need to succeed; people involved in our networks and forums get excellent support; our communications are well co-ordinated and delivered. Main responsibilities Channelling insight and intelligence: being recognised as the knowledge hub of Voluntary Action Lewisham, working effectively with and through others in the team and across the wider sector, through: 1. Gathering intelligence from your colleagues and the representatives you are working with 2. Identifying issues, policies and concerns that cross sector, community or organisational boundaries 3. Briefing the Connections Manager and wider team on developments in the external environment 4. Horizon scanning to help Voluntary Action Lewisham position itself well to take advantage of any opportunities 5. Sharing data and intelligence with cross-borough and regional or national partnerships and networks Enabling the voice of civil society: recruiting, training, supporting and advising representatives from Lewisham s civil society who are able to give voice to the needs and strengths of communities, through: 1. Recruiting people from the full diversity of local communities and groups to be representatives 2. Designing and delivering a programme of training that enables people to be effective in their roles 3. Providing one-to-one and group support and advice tailored to the needs of sector representatives 4. Facilitating borough-wide networks and fora that Voluntary Action Lewisham is responsible for supporting, including the children and young people s forum and equalities working group, ensuring these are action-based and solutions-focused so that the voice of these groups has an impact locally 5. Researching, writing and disseminating policy briefings on developments that affect (or could affect) civil society in Lewisham (including legislation, local policies and strategies, and learning from networks)

6 Managing communications: ensuring Voluntary Action Lewisham is known for high quality and high impact communications that deliver what civil society needs to thrive and achieve for our communities, through: 1. Developing the organisation s communications plans and recruiting the people to deliver these 2. Managing consultants, contractors and volunteers who are delivering Voluntary Action Lewisham s communications 3. Ensuring web content is updated and of high quality (through encouraging contributions from colleagues and preparing your own materials), and that newsletters and social media provide the information, insight and intelligence that civil society needs Demonstrating effectiveness: managing your workload and promoting your activities to ensure clear understanding of the work you do and the impact you achieve as part of the team through: 1. Entering engagement activity and outcomes onto the client relationship management system 2. Promoting your work and the availability and impact of Voluntary Action Lewisham s activities 3. Supporting communications and marketing activity for the organisation 4. Promoting membership of Voluntary Action Lewisham to people and groups in Lewisham s civil society 5. Contributing to business planning and wider business development activities at Voluntary Action Lewisham 6. Actively monitoring, evaluating and reporting on your work to funders, colleagues and the wider sector 7. Participating in team meetings, supervision/appraisal, and meetings of the Trustees and members 8. Carrying out other duties that are commensurate with the scope, purpose and responsibility of this post

7 The person specification How this will be used in the selection process To do this role we re looking for someone with the following skills/abilities, knowledge and experience please make sure you address all the points in your supporting statement as part of your application as this will be referred to closely in the shortlisting process. Remember that the definition we re using for civil society is in this recruitment pack if you re not sure of any of the points in the person specification below. The requirements Skills and abilities: 1. Confident communicator with the ability to tailor messages to diverse stakeholder groups 2. Ability to build trust and confidence with individuals and community groups 3. Strong facilitation skills 4. Research and report-writing skills 5. Excellent team working skills 6. Ability to manage specialist volunteers, consultants and associates Knowledge: 7. Understanding of the issues facing civil society 8. Knowledge of networks and resources relevant to civil society policy developments 9. Commitment to the principles of equality and diversity Experience: 10. Experience of successfully designing and delivering training 11. Experience of designing and monitoring a communications strategy 12. Experience of working within civil society 13. Experience of working in a policy, communications or similar role 14. Experience of managing projects and work programmes that achieve impact Other: 15. Able to work occasional evenings and weekends as required 16. Confident in use of ICT (from software to social media), to be administratively selfservicing