Community Engagement Officer

We are principally funded by Sport England to work with local partners to create opportunities for people to be physically active, move more, and play sport. We work with a diverse range of partners and manage several grant funding programmes and projects that aim to create opportunities for local people in the Black Country to be active.

About the roles

Working closely with the Active Black Country team and Local Authority partners, the 2 x Community Engagement Officers will play a key role in identifying community need and will identify appropriate support or training solutions. The role will support communities to build capacity and knowledge and will share opportunities to be active, support creativity and the development of skills.

Working closely with the Active Black Country (ABC) team and Local Authority partners you will:

1. Engage with communities to understand barriers and motivations to adopting an active lifestyle.

2. Support community organisations to make it easier to find and access physical activity opportunities locally including online.

3. Support understanding and awareness of digital platforms including ABC s Black Country Moving Platform and its benefits.

4. Ensure that community voice is captured and utilised at all stages of development and support.

5. Connect and collaborate with key community engagement roles across the Black Country, such as Public Health Development Officers.

6. Develop positive relationships with all stakeholders.

Main duties

1. Work with the Active Communities Strategic Lead, communities, and residents to understand needs and training requirements.

2. Build relationships with partners, community organisations and provide support to integrate physical activity content on The Black Country Moving Platform.

3. To promote opportunities to encourage people to be active, providing ongoing support to local community organisations to raise awareness and accessibility of local services that support active lifestyles.

4. Coordinate a programme of support or training opportunities based on community need.

5. Work with the ABC Digital Inclusion Manager to improve the wayfinding experience of the Black Country Moving platform, developing content with community organisations and residents.

6. Share learning across the region to build shared understanding of the challenges to being active and how we can collectively deliver future services.

7. Collect and collate data including case studies.

8. Maintain ABC stakeholder database.

9. Ensure compliance at all times with contract management, procurement and finance procedures.

10. Be responsible and take reasonable care for the health, safety and welfare of self and other employees and the public in accordance with Health and Safety Legislation and company procedures.

11. Adhere to the Data Protection Act. Confidentiality must be maintained at all times.

12. Adhere to relevant Active Black Country Limited policies and procedures.

13. Undertake such other duties as may be appropriate.

Person Specification

1. Able to work as a trusted partner and build strong, effective and valued relationships across a wide range of people and organisations.

2. Visibly values and promotes co-design and can bring people together to jointly create innovative ideas and practice.

3. Skilled in building trust and long-term relationships across sectors especially with local partners, community-based organisations, local authorities and charities.

4. Significant experience of working with the voluntary and community sector at all levels, including staff, volunteers, trustees, and management committees.

5. Experience of building the capacity of voluntary and community organisations, with a focus on active lifestyle provision.

6. Knowledge of active lifestyle barriers and motivators and methods of overcoming barriers and maximising motivations to increase community activity.

7. Demonstrates professional, voluntary, or lived experience of communities most marginalised or under-represented in being active. Has knowledge and understanding of the barriers to activity. Can articulate, demonstrate, or evidence the valuable role that physical activity and sport can contribute to health, environmental & socio-economic outcomes.

8. Strong written and verbal skills. Able to distil learning clearly for different audiences, including communities, partners and funders.

9. A self-starter who shows skills in agile and adaptive working proving you can respond quickly, work flexibly and navigate through fast-paced, changing, complex and uncertain environments.