Community Engagement Worker
Covid-19 Vaccination
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Please note in order to progress your application, your data will be processed by our 3^rd party recruitment providers – North London Partners Shared Service, who conduct recruitment activities on behalf of Whittington Health NHS Trust.
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By applying for this role, you accept in the event you are successful that your personal data may be transferred from the Trust to another NHS organisation where your employment transfers within the NHS. This is in accordance with the streamlining programme which is aimed at saving you time and improving efficiencies within the NHS when your employment transfers.
Job overview
Part Time, Fixed Term Ends Dec 2025
Must be living in Islington and Understand Local Community
Suitable for a parent or having lived experience of the challenges local families face in accessing services .
Are you passionate about making a difference in your local community? Do you want to help address inequalities and ensure that everyone has access to Bright Start Local services? We are looking for a dedicated Community Engagement Worker to engage with underrepresented groups and increase access to Bright Start universal services in Islington.
About the Role:
As a Community Engagment Worker, you will: Connect with local families and individuals, particularly those from underrepresented backgrounds.
Promote and increase awareness of essential services.
Build trust with families and encourage participationin Local Bright Start ActivitiesWork closely with Health visiting Service to address inequalities.
About You:
You live in Islington and understand the local community.You’re passionate about social justice and reducing inequalities.
You have excellent communication and outreach skills.
Experience in community work is desirable but not essential.
Being a parent or having lived experience of the challenges local families face is a plus.
This is a fantastic opportunity to make a real impact in your community. We welcome applications from local residents, particularly parents, who want to help create positive change!
Main duties of the job
The community engagement worker's role is to bridge the gap between families/communities not accessing health visiting services and available healthcare resources. They will actively reach out to these families/Communities , serving as a link to health services.This role is crucial for promoting community/family health and wellbeing and addressing healthcare access disparities. Recruits will be from within the community and may be bilingual, particularly in Somali and Turkish, to better serve the diverse population.
They should have strong connections within these communities and be knowledgeable about health visiting services.
Working alongside a team of professionals, including health visiting staff and Bright Start Islington, the community engagement worker will facilitate access to health visiting services and other local resources. They will liaise between agencies and community/family members, participating in outreach activities and collaborating with health visiting teams to tailor services to community/family needs.Acting as positive role models, they will raise awareness and share key information about health visiting services to empower families and community to make positive choices. Ensuring a positive experience for service users is a priority, with a focus on listening, respecting, and empowering individuals to achieve desired outcomes.
They will also behave in a professional manner, as a representatives of Whittington health Trust.
Working for our organisation
Whittington Health serves a richly diverse population and works hard to ensure that all our services are fair and equally accessible to everyone.Nowhere is this more obvious than in the way we look after our staff. We aim to employ a workforce which is as representative as possible of this population, so we are open to the value of differences in age, disability, gender, marital status, pregnancy and maternity, race, sexual orientation, and religion or belief.
The Trust believes that as a public sector organisation we have an obligation to have recruitment, training, promotion and other formal employment policies and procedures that are sensitive to these differences. We think that by doing so, we are better able to treat our patients as well as being a better place to work.
Detailed job description and main responsibilities
Outreach
Identifying target communities/ families that may benefit from health visiting services but are currently unaware or not accessing health services.
Actively engage with community members through various channels such as community centres, schools, religious institutions, and social gatherings to raise awareness about available health visiting / healthcare services
Developing outreach strategies to effectively reach families/communities such as knocking on doors, setting up information booths at community events, distributing information leaflet about services , partnering with local groups, face to face activities with local communities and support the wellbeing offer that are tailored to community needs.
Works in partnerships with the health visiting teams.
Ensuring that services are aware of local culture and language as well as what families/ communities are saying they need
Communication & Building Relationship
A key part of the role will entail relationship building and maintaining relationship with local community groups and organisations along with statutory services also working with Turkish and Somalia community but not limited to these communities.
Building strong relationships and networks within the community to understand their needs, concerns, and cultural considerations regarding health services.
Engaging in conversations, actively listening to their concerns and needs, and demonstrating empathy and understanding of their unique circumstances.
Follow up with families to provide ongoing support, answer questions, address concerns, and ensure that they continue to receive the necessary healthcare services.
Be an advocate for family and community wellbeing, encouraging individuals and families to use the services provided
Work collaboratively with service on the issues that are raised by families/ communities, and base the response on solution-based collaboration principles.
Develop and maintain effective and appropriate communication systems with staff and colleagues within Whittington Health, Children’s Centres, Schools, GP Practices, and other identified agencies
Share information about available services with families and community using persuasive, reassuring , tact and empathy to share information
Have skills and knowledge to overcome/deal with barriers to understanding such as learning disability/mental health/language barriers
Providing Information and Education:
Community engagement workers share information about the importance of health visiting services, the benefits they offer to families and children, and how to access them.
Provide educational materials on topics related to child development, parenting, nutrition, and healthcare.
Provide support and guidance to overcome barriers to accessing health services and connect families with the resources they need.
The post holder will be visiting various locations throughout the borough, including Mosques, homes, community centres, outreach centres and schools when assisting with information sessions.
Positive role models to raise awareness, sharing key information that will enable the community to make positive choices.
The postholder will support the promotion and delivery of co-produced health interventions to local communities and families.
They will contribute to the reporting of activities undertaken to aid evaluation of the pilot.
To contribute to the training and support of staff working with local communities where appropriate.
Reports back to senior management on the needs of the community, primarily identifying service gaps that the community feel they need and makes recommendations.
Creates records of the above
Clinical
The post holder will sign post families and members of the community to appropriate health visiting services/ other services and where appropriate support with interventions to meet identified needs.
The post holder will support the co-production of interventions and Health promotion sessions with families/community. This may occur across a range of settings, including the service base, schools, or pop up clinics in the community, children centre etc.
The post holder will liaise with and support the service working with individuals families within the local community.
There is expectation of the post holder to assist parents/ family who may struggle as necessary accompanying them to health services , supporting them with completing any paper work as necessary, holding items for them whilst parents attend to children.
The post holder will be expected to work independently according to a plan agreed with the line manager and within the overall framework of the team’s policies and procedures.
Ability to acts on own initiative when visiting/ working with families, with access to regular supervision by line manager and guidance from senior professional colleagues.
Create records of health needs of the community and contribute to suggestions on meeting health needs.
The post holder will have good time management skills, especially when organising events. They will be able to work on their own initiative and plan their day. Uses their judgement to make decisions when to escalate a situation upwards.
The post holder maybe required to support in the baby clinic setting, setting up weighing scale, length measuring equipment, cleaning toy and equipment, supporting with measuring older children’s weight and height and reporting figures to the practitioner.
Responsibility
There will be a need for periods of concentration, when planning the days work or events.
Working conditions/ patterns can be unpredictable with interruptions, unpleasant weather, may meet people with aggression, risk associated with working in the community.
There might be occasional encounter with unpleasant/ emotional or distressing circumstance including people who may have experienced trauma.
There will be occasions where individuals can become frustrated and upset.
This role involves using frequent moderate effort for several times depending on the activity as the activity, such as walking, carrying items, lifting / moving equipment or during events. It also involves moderate effort for short periods such as writing up reports.
General
Maintain strict confidentiality of service user information at all times.
Be sensitive to cultural differences.
Genuine commitment to serving the needs of the community.
To develop skills and competencies that assist in the delivery of current duties.
To receive
This is not an exhaustive list of duties and responsibilities, and the post holder may be required to undertake other duties which fall within the grade of the job, in discussion with the manager.
Person specification
Qualifications
Essential criteria- Equivalent relevant experience to vocational qualification level 3
- 2 GCSEs, including English and maths (A –C)
- A relevant level 3 qualification or above
Skillls /Abilites
Essential criteria- Able to communicate with a wide range of people from different backgrounds and disciplines
- Able to show practical experience of working with local communities /families/ parents and individuals
- Empowering and working in partnership with families/communities and people using our services
- Ability to share information effectively with families/ communities / team and partners as appropriate. This includes verbal and written communication
- Able to show compassion and sensitivity when working with people from different background
- Ability to work unsupervised, and in prioritising work
Knowledge
Essential criteria- Experience or knowledge of working with families/ children and community
- Experience or knowledge of working with parents/ families and/or communities lesslikely to access heath service and those less
- Experience or knowledge of community liaison working within diverse communities including people from different backgrounds
- Knowledge about health visiting service and other local services available in the community
- Knowledge of local networks and local communities
- Experience of working with people that might not access traditional health services
- Experience of having used health visiting service and health/ community services available
SAFEGUARDING CHILDREN AND ADULTS
To comply with the Trust’s Safeguarding Children and Adults policies, procedures and protocols. All individual members of staff (paid or unpaid) have a duty to safeguard and promote the welfare of children, young people and vulnerable adults This will require you to:
- Ensure you are familiar with and comply with the London Child Protection Procedures and protocols for promoting and safeguarding the welfare of children and young people.
- Ensure you are familiar and comply with the London Multi Agency Safeguarding Vulnerable Adults Pan London Procedures.
- Ensure you are familiar and comply with local protocols and systems for information sharing.
- Know the appropriate contact numbers and required reporting lines.
- Participate in required training and supervision.
- Comply with required professional boundaries and codes of conduct
Whittington Health is committed to safeguarding all children and vulnerable adults and expects all staff and volunteers to share this commitment.
Your application form –- Provide only business email address for your referees – we are unable to request references from yahoo, Hotmail, Gmail accounts.
- Make sure you to include all evidence of where you meet the essential requirement on the jobs description as this forms the base of our shortlisting criteria.
- Closing dates are given as a guide; we are within our right to close adverts early so please ensure you submit your application as soon as possible to avoid delay.
- If you do not hear from us up to 3 weeks after the closing date of the job unfortunately this means you have not been successfully shortlisted for interview. If your require feedback on your application please contact the appointing manager detailed in the body of the advert.
- Please check your emails regularly as all correspondence from us will be via trac.systems – occasionally these emails will go into your Junk folder.
- Employment at Whittington Health is offered subject to successful completion of a 6 month probationary period for all staff with the exception of GMC Registered Doctors.
- Applications from job seekers who require sponsorship to work in the UK are welcome and will be considered alongside all other applications. Before submitting your application and to avoid disappointment please check that you are eligible under the UKVI points based system.
- Applications are welcome from people wishing to job share or work flexible patterns. We are committed to equal opportunities.
- In submitting an application form, you authorise Whittington Health NHS Trust to confirm any previous NHS service details via the Inter Authority Transfer (IAT) process should you be appointed to the post.
You will be asked to capture an image of the relevant documents as well as a “selfie” using your smartphone/tablet (if available) for facial matching. TrustID will also perform a digital address check using Trunarrative and Equifax, which is a soft check and does not leave a footprint on your credit rating.
For more information, visit www.trustid.co.uk
Please note that during the recruitment process your Identity Documentation (i.e. passport, driving licence, visa, etc.) will be scanned using a device which recognises UV, Infrared and Machine Readable Zone security features of the documents provided
The Trust uses electronic new starter forms on Trac to collect personal details. Information collected is securely stored and used to set up the employee record on the ESR HR system.
We would welcome applications from individuals who are from underrepresented groups in the organisation