As a leading Housing Association, Sovereign is committed to providing quality, affordable homes and services within sustainable, successful communities.

We're led by our values and driven by a strong social purpose, placing our residents at the heart of everything we do.

We have a fantastic opportunity for a Community Development Officer to join our team on fixed term basis for 12 months. You'll be based from our offices in Basingstoke or Christchurch with a focus on communities across South Hampshire, including Southampton, New Forest and Basingstoke.

You can expect a mix of office and home working as well as being out and about within the community.

The role

You'll co-ordinate the effective delivery of projects, activities and programmes in identified communities in line with the objectives of our Thriving Communities strategy.

You'll use an asset-based community development approach to support resident led community action with the aim of increasing skills and opportunity in communities, to help successfully establish our new communities and to support regeneration programmes.

Responsibilities include :

• Working across the community, forming partnership and using your specialist knowledge and experience to design programme(s) on an annualised basis which benefit the community
• Supporting resident led community groups to establish good governance which in turn supports initiatives and activities, fundraising and partnership work
• Conducting skills assessments to identify learning and development activities for resident led community groups and individual residents active in their communities
• Identifying and securing external funding to enable the implementation of community and employability programmes and to widen their impact.

You'll be required to commission, service and manage contracts

What you'll need

You'll be someone who loves to be collaborative as you'll be working with a number of teams internally as well as identifying and partnering with external stakeholders to support your initiatives.

To be successful in this role you'll need to be a self-starter with experience working in a similar role, demonstrating a positive can-do approach and have the following :

• Experience in setting up and supporting resident led community groups
• A track record in forming community partnerships in support of community development
• Experience in carrying out skills assessments and delivering webinars
• Ability to build effective working relationships
• A flexible and proactive attitude

You should be comfortable being remotely managed and enjoy autonomy. This role will involve regular travel across your region so you must have access to your own transport.

What you'll receive from us

• £450 flex-pot annually, discounted shopping & cycling scheme
• 25 Days Holiday + Bank Holidays (with an extra day every year up to 30 days)
• Company pension scheme matched up to 12%, life cover at 4x your salary
• Flexible working - we're committed to giving people flexibility as widely as possible
• Options for private medical insurance, dental insurance & critical illness cover

If you're motivated by making a real difference to people's lives and aspire to work in an ambitious team then we'd love to hear from you

Please note, we will carry out a Basic DBS check for the successful applicant.