About the role

ID: 1923 Perinatal Community Engagement Coordinator
Service: Family Action Medway Perinatal Mental Health Service

Salary: Grade 3, points 20–23 —starting at £28,884 FTE per annum, rising to £31,698 FTE (£17,330.40 - £19,018.80 per annum, pro rata)

Location: Family Action Medway Office and locations across Medway

Hours: 22.2 hours per week, with occasional evening and weekend working to support community events and service delivery

Contract: Permanent

Family Action & the Role’s Impact:
At Family Action we support people through change, challenge or crisis. It’s what we’ve done for over 150 years. We protect children, support young people and adults and offer direct, practical help to families and communities.

We see first-hand the power of family to shape lives, for better or worse, so we speak up for the importance of family in national and local policymaking, amplify family voices and represent the changing needs of families in the UK today.

As our Perinatal Community Engagement Coordinator, you will help families across Medway access early support from pregnancy through to their child’s third birthday and, where appropriate, up to age five. Working within our Integrated Perinatal Mental Health Service, you will contribute to Medway’s Healthy Babies offer and wider Best Start in Life ambitions, promoting parental emotional wellbeing and strong parent–infant relationships.

You will build trusted relationships with parents, community groups and partner organisations, reaching families whose voices are seldom heard and helping to remove barriers to support. Through creative engagement, lived experience and genuine co-production, you will help make services more accessible, responsive and reflective of local communities.

Using a trauma-informed approach, you will strengthen partnerships, reduce stigma around parental mental ill-health and equip professionals to connect families with the right support at the right time. You will also line manage Perinatal Support Worker(s), supporting safe, child-centred and outcome-focused practice.

Main Responsibilities:

• Develop creative, lived-experience-led approaches to engage underrepresented families, build trust and improve access to perinatal mental health support.
• Build effective partnerships with Family Hubs, early years settings, health professionals, council teams and community organisations to strengthen coordinated support and referral pathways.
• Work alongside the Volunteer Coordinator to embed co-production, amplify parent voices and co-facilitate the service’s lived experience advisory work.
• Organise community events, listening activities, workshops and campaigns that reduce stigma, promote parental emotional wellbeing and support attachment and bonding.
• Identify local barriers to accessing support and develop an action plan informed by community consultation, helping partners recognise early signs of parental mental ill-health and confidently signpost or refer families.
• Support service evaluation by maintaining monitoring information and gathering quantitative and qualitative feedback with the Service Manager.
• Line manage Perinatal Support Worker(s), reviewing assessments, outcome-focused support plans and risk assessments, and contributing to quality assurance.
• Promote safeguarding, confidentiality and safe information sharing, following Family Action and Medway Council procedures.

Main Requirements (for details check the job description and person specification):
• A relevant qualification equivalent to NVQ Level 3 in health and social care, youth work, early years and childcare, education or counselling, and/or previous work with families.
• Experience of engaging parents and communities, developing partnerships and delivering initiatives that remove barriers for underserved and underrepresented communities.
• Experience of multidisciplinary working, leading professional development, delivering workshops, facilitating groups and supporting co-production or community-based programmes.
• Professional experience with children, young people and families, including safeguarding, risk management and person-centred, restorative and solution-focused practice.
• Understanding of parental mental health, public health messages, child development, attachment and bonding, and the impact of discrimination and social exclusion.
• Excellent interpersonal, written communication and organisational skills, confidence using Microsoft Office and Teams, and the ability to adapt programmes to changing needs.
• A commitment to Family Action’s values, equality and inclusion, and flexibility to work occasional evenings and weekends.
• Knowledge of local services for expectant and new parents in Medway is desirable. Local knowledge and lived experience will bring valuable insight.
• Appointments are subject to Family Action receiving a satisfactory enhanced disclosure from the Disclosure and Barring Service.

Benefits:
- Annual paid leave entitlement of 25 days and annual progression to 30 days, plus bank holidays, pro rata for part-time hours.
- Up to 6% matched pension contributions.
- Enhanced paid sick leave and paid family leave provisions.
- Eye care and winter flu jab vouchers.
- Cycle to work scheme.
- Investment in your professional development through ongoing quality training and career development opportunities.

We are forward looking, ambitious and committed to continuous improvement. We are a people focused, can-do organisation, which strives for excellence in all we do and operates with mutual respect.

To Apply:
• Click the ‘Apply’ link below and fill out our digital application form
• Closing Date: Wednesday 25th November at 11:59pm
Interviews are scheduled to take place week commencing 30th November virtually, with slots throughout the working day and early/late slots available.

For any queries, or if you would like to discuss any aspect of the selection process or the potential for flexible working, please email: mariya.zlatinova@family-action.org.uk

All appointments with Family Action are subject to satisfactory Safer Recruitment checks.

Our commitment to Equality, Diversity & Inclusion:
We are happy to consider any reasonable adjustments that candidates may need during the recruitment process and you will be asked whether you require any adjustments if shortlisted for interview. We also make reasonable adjustments on the job, where required.

We are committed to Equality, Diversity & Inclusion in all that we do and welcome applications from all sections of the community. Intersectionality is important to us and we welcome applications from ethnically diverse communities, LGBTQIA+ candidates and disabled candidates. We are committed to increasing the representation of these groups at Family Action because we know that greater diversity will lead to even greater results for families and children and we strive for our workforce to be truly representative of the diverse communities we support.

All candidates with a disability are welcome to apply under the Disability Confident Scheme and request priority consideration for an interview, provided they meet the essential criteria for the role.

To help remove financial barriers to working with us, we will reimburse reasonable travel costs if you are invited to attend an interview in person.

*Ordinarily Family Action appoints new starters at the starting point of the salary scale (with subsequent annual pay progression), unless you have experience that would justify appointment further up the salary scale or there are any other exceptional reasons.