Voice and Influence Coordinator

Job title: Area Voice and Influence Coordinator

Salary: P03 £42,839 - £ 46,142 (annual pay award pending)

Hours: Full Time

Contract: Fixed term - 12 months

Location: Merrion House - working across the Leeds

The Voice Influence and Change Team are recruiting a Voice and Influence Coordinator to cover maternity leave for 12 months. The role is based at Merrion House and regularly involves working in the evenings and weekends.

As an Area Voice and Influence Coordinator, you'll thrive on building positive relationships with children and young people, hearing their voice about things that really matter to them; and making sure their voice influences how we do things in Leeds. You will make a difference by working in partnership with children and young people who are care experienced or in need of support from a social worker and their parents and carers to improve and develop services. You will work with organisations across the city who run youth voice groups for young people who are often seldom heard or underrepresented to help amplify their voices and share their priorities with decision makers. You will play a key role in championing the Care Promise and Child Friendly Leeds Wishes .

Leeds City Council is one of the largest employers in the region with over 14,000 employees. We seek to recruit and develop talented individuals who embody our council values and ambitions .

About you

As an Area Voice and Influence Coordinator you will bring to the role:

• Excellent interpersonal skills; confident and charismatic with the ability to build strong relationships with children, young people, parents, carers, and colleagues in a variety of settings.
• Experience of managing and delivering projects / programmes with children and young people within time scales and budget.
• Experience of direct work with children and young people whose views may be seldom heard or underrepresented and planning and delivering group activities.
• Experience of working in partnership with different teams and services and voluntary and community groups.
• Ability to work flexibly including regular evenings and weekends.

About the role

As our next Area Voice and Influence Coordinator you will bring a can-do attitude, positive energy and commitment to working with children, young people and their parents / carers and enjoy using your creativity to develop engaging group work sessions, training and events. Your role will be varied, your day could include activities such as meeting with different services to plan how they will deliver a consultation with children and young people, writing a risk assessment, visiting a children's home to share voice and influence opportunities and leading young people's involvement in a recruitment panel. You will play a critical role in the team, working alongside two other coordinators but being responsible for all programmes of work relating to social care and seldom heard groups and managing an officer. This role involves a wide range of administrative tasks and developing communications, so you will be organised, have attention for detail and be able to work to demanding deadlines.

The role is integral to our ambition to be a Child Friendly city, the Voice Influence and Change Team work in partnership with children young people and parents and carers across the city, supporting and enabling them to have their voices heard and influence positive change.

What we offer you

We take pride in offering the best employee experience, with benefits including:

• a competitive salary and annual leave entitlement plus statutory holidays
• membership of the West Yorkshire Pension Fund with generous employer contributions
• flexible and hybrid working arrangements subject to service requirements

• a clear career pathway and continuing professional development opportunities
• a range of staff benefits to help you boost your wellbeing and make your money go further

How to apply

Please complete the online application form.

Read our guidance for further advice on completing your application.

If you have any queries or would like an informal chat about the role, please contact Hannah Lamplugh, Strategy and Influence Lead. Call 07891279304 or email [email protected]

A Disclosure and Barring Service (DBS) check against the Children's or Adults' barred list as applicable will be carried out on preferred candidates. Read our recruitment of ex-offenders policy .

We welcome applications from everyone and actively seek a diverse range of applicants from all backgrounds and cultures. We particularly encourage applications from, but not limited to, women, carers, veterans as well as LGBT+, ethnically diverse, disabled and care experienced people. This role is based in the UK. Home Office guidance states that candidates must evidence their right to work in the UK prior to commencing employment, either as a UK or Irish citizen, under the EU Settlement scheme or having secured any other relevant work visa.

If you do not have the right to work in the UK, you must consider your own eligibility for sponsorship for a particular role through the Skilled Worker visa route before applying. To be eligible for sponsorship you'll usually need to be paid the standard salary rate of at least £41,700 per year or meet one of the other eligibility criteria. Please ensure you are eligible before applying.

Job Description

Job purpose: Area Voice and Influence Coordinators have a specific citywide focus area of their work and lead and co-ordinate citywide strategic voice and influence projects and mechanisms to enable children and young people and parents/ carers to have their voices heard and influence change.

Responsibilities

• Lead on work with children and young people who are looked after, care leavers or in need of support from a social worker and their parents and carers.
• Lead on work with children and young people who can be seldom heard or underrepresented. This includes children and young people who live in areas of deprivation, are ethnically diverse, refugees and asylum seekers, young carers, LGBT+ young people.
• Lead on building the network of Voice Influence and Change Leads (primarily from social care and the third sector) who are working with children and young people whose views may be seldom heard/ underrepresented. Providing training, facilitating partnership meetings and events with staff and young people, and producing reports demonstrating the impact of their work.
• Line manages voice and influence officer and co-facilitate the social care youth voice programmes- Children in Care Council and Care Leavers Council.
• Work in partnership with the Voice and Influence Officer to ensure the priorities and issues identified by looked after children's young people and care leavers are heard and acted on by decision makers and key partners.
• Work in partnership with Social Care Teams providing strategic advice and guidance on the involvement of children and young people and parents and carers in decision making and lead on social care voice and influence ...