About the role

This role is all about developing a welcoming and supportive support group community for kinship carers wherever they live. Building belonging, resilience and empowerment for support group leaders and kinship carers.

Funded by the Department for Education, our national Peer Support Service is creating a sustainable and life-changing legacy for kinship carers across England.

This is a game-changing service for kinship carers and builds on Kinship’s 10 years’ experience of developing peer support groups, and two years delivering a national service which has set up 145 new groups. 

As a Peer Support Officer, you’ll make sure we deliver an exceptional and consistent peer support service for kinship carers.  

You’ll set-up and develop new in-person groups in areas of high need, as well as supporting existing groups to thrive, developing a resilient and powerful peer support community.

Purpose of the role

Taking responsibility for the North West of England, you will reach out and work directly in local communities to develop sustainable kinship peer support groups.  

You’ll need to think strategically – mapping areas and utilising resources to be effective and efficient in managing your time and building local connections.

Using community engagement techniques like coffee mornings, community events and linking with our training and support service, you’ll build local connections and relationships.

As you develop a group and recruit support group leaders, you’ll provide standardised training and help the group to navigate forming and storming – providing reassurance and support to empower the group.

Once the group is stable, you’ll transition the support group leader/s over to the ‘Hub’ team to build confidence and knowledge to run their group independently.  You’ll also support online groups and special interest groups to transition to independence. 

You’ll ensure targets are met and that kinship carers receive a good experience.

Key responsibilities include:

• In person (face-to-face) strategic outreach into local and regional communities including setting up and attending local engagement events.

• Set up and develop at least six new sustainable in person peer support groups annually, attending up to six sessions in person (if needed) before transition to self-sufficiency.

• Recruit and retain support group leaders to develop their peer support groups.

• Deliver standardised training to support group leaders (group roles and responsibilities, safeguarding, setting up, running and promoting a group).

Essential requirements include:

• Proven experience in reaching and establishing strong relationships with hidden or underserved communities in person.

• Significant experience developing peer support communities.

• Proven experience of recruiting, managing, training and supporting volunteers in community settings with an emphasis on understanding and working with vulnerable volunteers. 

• Proven experience of ensuring outcomes and impacts of services are evidenced through high quality data collection.

Download the full job pack here

Key dates:

• Deadline: 5pm, Monday 10 June 2024 

• Interviews: Tuesday 18 June 2024 (in-person, Greater Manchester)

How to apply:

We will ask you for your CV and to respond to the following four questions via the Applied platform. Please note that all answers will be viewed anonymously by reviewers and CVs will not be viewed until after this sift has happened. This is the first opportunity to demonstrate your experience and to stand out in the recruitment process. Reviewers will not see all your answers together and will be marking on the strength of the response to each question. Once this is complete, both will be reviewed together. You will have 250 words per answer.

Questions for application (along with CV):

1.      Outline why you want to work at Kinship in this role, and how your values align to the Kinship ones? Please include a bit about your experience in this section related to the job description.

2.     This role needs to develop sustainable peer support groups, whereby sustainable means that the group is able to run by itself and has a strong peer support group leader (who is a kinship carer). Tell us how you would approach this.

3.     Give one example of a project, service or programme where you have delivered successful community outreach. How did you manage it, what were the targets and what did you achieve?

4.     When developing peer support groups with people with lived experience, what are the things you need to consider?