Family Health Champion

Home-Start West Northants is looking for a passionate and connected individual to join us as our Family Health Champion and help shape how we work with health and wellbeing services across West Northamptonshire.

What will you be doing?

This is an exciting opportunity to use your knowledge, experience and networks to strengthen relationships across primary, community and secondary care and help more local families access support when they need it most.

Working alongside our Corporate Partnership Trustee (Local Government and Public Sector), the Education Connections Champion, Trustees and leadership team, you will help us think differently about how we engage with health professionals and organisations. We want to build stronger connections, improve awareness of our services, develop effective referral pathways, identify opportunities for partnership working and inspire greater involvement from volunteers and supporters.

This is a new and evolving role, giving you the opportunity to bring fresh ideas, challenge traditional approaches and help redesign how Home-Start West Northants connects with the health sector. Your insight and enthusiasm will help ensure professionals understand the positive impact our services have on families and children, enabling us to reach more people and make an even greater difference across our communities.

If you are someone who enjoys building relationships, creating opportunities and helping organisations grow their impact, we would love to hear from you.

We work with families who have young children, offering practical and emotional support through our amazing volunteers. Now we are looking for someone with experience in education who would like to give a few hours a month to help guide our future with early years, schools, colleges and universities etc.

We are looking for someone with drive, passion, likes trying new things, innovative, different - yet making sure they are working with the team to keep to our vision and values. This role will add impact. Be a beacon of light for raising the profile of our charity and what we do.

Our overall aim is to create relationships with families going through difficult times in order to work towards increasing parents' confidence, independence and resilience.

Along with charities nationally, our two big challenges are recruiting volunteers and getting funding or donations.

This role will be instrumental in helping those causes - more money and volunteers means we can change the lives of more vulnerable families in West Northants.

What are we looking for?

In addition to the obvious qualities of being personable, knowledgeable, a good listener, empathetic and engaging, we are looking for someone who has:

• At least 2-3 years' experience working within the health sector, including primary care, community health, public health, mental health, children's services, or hospital-based services.
• A good understanding of how healthcare services support children, parents, and families, including referral pathways and multi-agency working.
• Knowledge of the roles of GPs, Health Visitors, Midwives, School Nurses, Therapists, Community Health Teams, Hospitals, Urgent Care Centres, and other health professionals.
• An understanding of the challenges faced by vulnerable families, including social isolation, mental health difficulties, financial hardship, disability, long-term health conditions, and adverse life events.
• Experience of building and maintaining professional relationships across organisations and sectors.
• Confidence in networking, influencing, and identifying opportunities for partnership working.
• Strong communication skills, with the ability to engage healthcare professionals and promote the benefits of Home-Start's services.
• A passion for improving outcomes for children and families through early intervention and prevention.

Desirable Experience

It would be beneficial, but not essential, if you have experience of:

• Working within the NHS, Integrated Care Systems (ICS), Primary Care Networks (PCNs), community health services, or public health teams.
• Family health, maternity services, health visiting, early years services, child development, mental health, or safeguarding.
• Developing referral pathways between organisations.
• Partnership development, stakeholder engagement, or service improvement projects.
• Volunteer recruitment, community engagement, or charitable organisations.
• Fundraising, sponsorship, grant applications, or health-related community initiatives.
• Delivering presentations, awareness campaigns, training sessions, or community outreach activities.

Personal Qualities

You will be:

• Passionate about supporting families and improving health and wellbeing outcomes.
• An effective relationship builder who enjoys connecting people and organisations.
• Proactive, innovative, and able to identify new opportunities for collaboration.
• Confident in representing Home-Start West Northants within health settings and professional networks.
• Supportive and collaborative, while respecting Home-Start's values and mission.
• Committed to helping Home-Start West Northants reach more families through stronger engagement with health services.

What difference will you make?

What difference you will make

Your support will help Home-Start West Northants:

• Reach more families who need support
• Improve knowledge and engagement - both ways
• Strengthen our health presence
• Continue making a meaningful difference in the local community
• Help recruit more volunteers who can support more families and change their lives now and forever

Can you help us recruit more volunteers through health pathways?

Working with our social media volunteers - health services see people who often become excellent volunteers later.

Volunteer pipelines:

Return-to-practice

• retired nurses
• retired health visitors
• retired midwives

Professional development

• student nurses
• occupational therapy students
• psychology students
• medical students

Corporate health routes

• NHS staff volunteering days
• local employers' wellbeing programmes

Campaign ideas

• "Support a family locally"
• "2 hours a week can change a family's future"
• "Use your professional skills differently"