Vacancies - Citizens Advice Rotherham

Citizens Advice Rotherham

Trainee Adviser
Hours: 37.5 hours per week
Status: Permanent position
Salary: £18,000 (rising to £20,300 on gaining general advice certificate)
Holiday: 30 days (plus bank holidays)

Closing Date: 9am Monday 3rd August
Interview Date: Monday and Tuesday 10th/11th August

Responsible To: Advice Services Manager / Projects Manager (tbc)

Please note all CARD staff are currently working from home due to the pandemic – going forward all staff will be
expected to be able to work from home, our main office or an outreach venue, in line with service needs.

Trainee Adviser Job Description
At Citizens Advice Rotherham & District (CARD), we have an ambition to solve a client’s problem
at their first contact whenever possible, to ensure clients are seen quickly and by the right
person. It is our aim that Rotherham residents, funders and partner organisations see CARD as
a service that helps people deal with their problems and not merely a service that gives out a
leaflet or signposts elsewhere.
Role purpose
To work across the generalist and projects advice teams, supporting clients through different
advice channels including (but not limited to) Adviceline, Generalist Advice and Projects.
Advice
Advise clients via face to face, telephone, video and web chat channels.
Maintain and build own advice competence, through completing adviser training and
achieve full advice certificate within 12 months of joining.
Advise in outreach environments as required.
Work collaboratively with other colleagues involved in the advice work process.
Maintain confidentiality about clients and their contact with the service.
Consult the advice session supervisor appropriately.
Work closely with reception staff to ensure that clients are seen promptly and efficiently
and are well informed about where they are on the advice journey.
Work within agreed CARD systems and procedures.
Maintain an accurate record of advice provided on Casebook.
Liaise with advice staff regarding support for individual clients.

Ensure that you efficiently utilise appointment and drop in slots with supervision from the
Advice Session Supervisor.
Research and campaigns
Support the CARD lead on any campaigns the team are working on.
Help the research and campaigns coordinator by identifying growing advice trends.
Professional development
Attend relevant internal and external meetings as agreed with the line manager.
Prepare for and attend supervision sessions / team meetings / staff meetings as
appropriate.
Undergo relevant training as identified with your line manager.
Other duties and responsibilities
Abide by health and safety guidelines and share responsibility for your own safety and
that of colleagues.
Any other relevant advice and support duties required to ensure the smooth running of
the service.
Demonstrate commitment to the aims and policies of the Citizens Advice service.
Help set a positive and supportive environment by displaying our behaviors of being
responsible, inventive and generous.

Trainee Adviser Person Specification
1. Confident communicator, both over the phone and in person.
2. Ability to write detailed and quality case notes
3. Proficiency in IT, and in particular a familiarity with Casebook
4. Ability to research difficult advice issues within reputable sources and convey complex
information to the client, ensuring they have understood.
5. Ability to learn and develop
6. Understanding of and commitment to the aims and principles of the Citizens Advice
service and our values.

How to apply
For an application pack please email: careers@citizensadvicerotherham.org.uk

Healthwatch Rotherham – Information & Campaigns Officer

Salary: £21,930 pro rata
Contract Type: Permanent
Hours: 30 hours per week
Annual Leave: 30 days per year plus bank holidays
Reports to: Healthwatch Service Manager
Location: Home and office based (please note
that this role will be primarily home-based while we respond to Covid-19)

Background
The Local Authority has commissioned Citizens Advice Rotherham & District (CARD) to
deliver Healthwatch Rotherham – the independent consumer champion for health and social
care. Healthwatch is the main public and patient engagement mechanism for health and
social care service users.
Healthwatch Rotherham’s role includes representing and championing the health and social
care needs and experiences of adults and children in Rotherham, acting as an independent
local voice ensuring that services meet the needs of residents and remain high-quality and
fit-for-purpose whilst helping communities to exercise greater choice over the services they
receive. Healthwatch Rotherham has a visible presence in the borough, with an effective,
proactive and independent local voice.
This is an exciting time to join Healthwatch Rotherham. The successful candidate will work
within a small, dedicated team to implement a new work plan and deliver an exceptional
service to the community whilst championing the voice of residents in shaping services in the
future. You will work closely with the Healthwatch Service Manager and Healthwatch
Engagement Officer and will also be supported by the wider Citizens Advice Rotherham
team of staff and volunteers in delivering an ambitious and exciting programme of services
and engagement for Rotherham.

Purpose of Role
We are looking for a talented and enthusiastic individual to develop and deliver a programme
of information, advice and signposting services accessible to all residents including those
who are traditionally hard to reach.
They will deliver Healthwatch Rotherham’s information and research work through analysis
and report-writing, whilst creating high quality data. They will meaningfully investigate and
accurately capture people’s needs, experiences and opinions so that we can effectively drive
improvements to health and social care services. The postholder will support the
Engagement Officer with direct research activities with the public, and alongside the
Healthwatch Service Manager, promote the patient voice and influence decision-makers

using our evidence base. They will work to identify the key health and social care issues
present within the borough, promoting and championing these within Healthwatch reporting
and representation.
The successful candidate will have experience of delivering advice in a community setting.
They will have a can-do attitude, be passionate about making a difference and able to
demonstrate an approach to work that is proactive, uses initiative, effective planning and
time management to problem solve and achieve targets and deadlines.
The role will be based primarily at home while we respond and adapt to the Covid 19 crisis
although some outreach work will be required within the Rotherham area. Working
arrangements will be reviewed regularly with a view to resuming a flexible pattern of home
and office based working. The successful candidate will need to have a flexible approach to
working and be prepared to adapt to the needs of the organisation.
In line with our policy, the successful candidate will be subject to an enhanced DBS check.

For an application pack please email:
lesley.cooper@healthwatchrotherham.org.uk
The closing date for applications is 5pm on Friday 31st July 2020.
Interviews will be held the week commencing 10th August.

Healthwatch Rotherham – Engagement Officer

Purpose of Role
We are looking for a talented and enthusiastic individual to develop and deliver a programme
of engagement, reaching out to all communities in the borough, with a particular focus on
those that may be seldom heard.
They will raise awareness of the role that Healthwatch has to play, working with community
groups, forums and hard to reach groups to seek feedback on health and social care
services and issues, as well as strategic matters. They will work to identify the key health
and social care issues present within the borough, promoting and championing these within
Healthwatch reporting and representation.

The successful candidate will ideally have experience of community outreach and
engagement, using a variety of engagement tools and techniques to work effectively with
diverse communities. They will have a can-do attitude, be passionate about making a
difference and able to demonstrate an approach to work that is proactive, uses initiative,
effective planning and time management to problem solve and achieve targets and
deadlines.
They will meaningfully investigate and accurately capture people’s needs, experiences and
opinions so that we can effectively drive improvements to health and social care services.
The postholder will support the Research and Information Officer in providing advice,
information and signposting services to residents and will, alongside the Healthwatch
Service Manager, promote the patient voice and influence decision-makers using our
evidence base. They will work to identify the key health and social care issues present within
the borough, promoting and championing these within Healthwatch reporting and
representation.
The role will be based primarily at home while we respond and adapt to the Covid 19 crisis
although some outreach work will be required within the Rotherham area. Working
arrangements will be reviewed regularly with a view to resuming a flexible pattern of home
and office based working. The successful candidate will need to have a flexible approach to
working and be prepared to adapt to the needs of the organisation.
In line with our policy, the successful candidate will be subject to an enhanced DBS check.

Working with Citizens Advice Rotherham:

Rotherham Borough has dealt with some challenging times over the past 10 years, but Rotherham
Metropolitan Borough Council (RMBC) has turned a lot of the negatives into positives and as a
consequence of some great leadership there is a real drive for change. The Rotherham Plan is in
place and there is now huge investments being made by the council in the town centre and outlying
areas. We are seeing more new businesses moving into the area, creating new jobs and training
opportunities for local people. A good example of this is the opening of the new Gulliver’s World, a
new theme park being built on regenerated land that was formerly a factory site. The cost of
housing is low, compared to national averages, making Rotherham and affordable place to live and
work.
Founded in 1969 Citizens Advice Rotherham is very much at the heart of this community,
supporting local people to access free, independent, confidential and impartial advice and working
in partnership with statutory and voluntary sector agencies to make a difference across the
borough. We have a strong relationship with RMBC, from whom we receive £212,000 per year core
funding to provide a drop-in and telephone advice, five days per week between 9 and 5pm.
Over the last three years we have been on a mission to improve our advice service offer in order to
help more people, focusing much of our service development on hard to reach groups and
communities. In 2015/16 we supported about 4500 unique clients, this year we are hoping to
support over 10,000. This uplift has been achieved from the hard work and dedication of our paid
staff and volunteer team, who work together to deliver a great service. We have also spent time
reviewing the client journey, analysing how clients come into contact with us, this has resulted in
changes in our face to face advice model, allowing us to cut down waiting times and increase
appointments. This has been coupled with an investment in our telephone advice team and we
have joined the Single Queue pilot run by the national Adviceline team resulting in a lift of calls
answered from 50 per month to 300. we have set an ambitious target of answering 600 calls per
month by March 2021.
We recognise the importance of our people and invest in their welfare and happiness. As a service
we have adopted Generous, Innovative and Responsible as our values and our leadership works
hard to demonstrate those values every day. Over the last twelve months we have run numerous
events eg: we took all our people for a fun awayday to Chatsworth House in the summer, we had a
bring your dog to work week and we celebrated our success by having a week of lunches, where
every day of that week we provided all our people with a free lunch which we ate together, this made

sure part time staff are included. Citizens Advice Rotherham is a great place to work and have
fun while we work. Our volunteers and staff support one another, we have a common mission and
we work together to deliver an amazing service to our local community.