Join Our Team: Community Support Specialist for Racial Harassment Forum

Community Supporter

Supporting victims of racially and religiously motivated hate incidents

Job Description

Job title: RHF Community Supporter

Reporting to: RHF Manager/ Trustees

Location: BMECP Centre, 10 Fleet Street, Brighton, BN1 4ZE

Salary: £ 9,611 actual per annum 2 days a week.

Contract until end March 2025 with possibility of continuation funding

JOB DESCRIPTION

AIMS

To support victims of racially and religiously motivated hate incidents and to attempt to reduce harm caused by these incidents
To increase reporting of hate incidents that are racially and religiously motivated by actively promoting RHF to the local community (this includes using social media to promote RHF)
To work in partnership with the Third Party Reporting Centre Coordinator to provide support to victims of hate incidents
To take self- referrals from our partner organisations and community networks
To work closely with volunteers and members of the city’s diverse communities to increase reporting and raise awareness of the community support
To regularly update the RHF members about their work and hear feedback
To work and use non-discriminatory practice with all clients and communities they work with
To write regular reports on the progress of the service
To attend all relevant board and staff meetings.
To attend training as appropriate
Any other reasonable tasks as agreed with the Line Manager.

SUPPORT WORK

To answer phone calls and email inquiries promptly
To take on self referral and referrals from partner organisations
To provide accessible, holistic one-to-one a support to victims of hate incidents-crimes to help report or report on their behalf to the relevant organisation:

Listening, working at the client’s pace and to their wishes
Providing emotional support to clients
Supporting the client if they wish to take the matter further and if they do, support the client to report the incident, or to make the report on their behalf
Keeping regular contact with each client as to the process and outcome of their case with the statutory agencies
Providing information and advice to enable clients to make informed choices, and informing the client about their rights
Supporting and referring to the appropriate agency for risk assessment and ensuring both the clients and your own safety
Supporting on behalf of clients or supporting them to advocate for themselves with statutory agencies
Negotiating with services to ensure our clients’ access, communication, support and cultural needs are met throughout the process
To provide translation support as required

To ensure that all relevant incidents reported to the Police are recorded/flagged as hate incidents/crimes in tandem with the Third Party Reporting Centre Team
To assist clients to make complaints e.g. to the Police or housing provider if they feel they have been unfairly treated working at all times with the Third Party Reporting Team
To report serious incidents or concerns about clients’ safety and other risk issues in a timely manner to the Line Manager and appropriate agency
To ensure confidentiality and adherence with Data Protection legislation
To operate within professional boundaries at all times
To ensure with the Third Party Reporting Centre that authorisations, disclosure forms, essential client information and other relevant information is kept up to date- Ensure that hate incidents are logged into the Reporting Centre Team
To inform the client about how they can complain or feedback about the service they received from RHF.

MANAGEMENT AND MONITORING

To keep an up-to date, accurate records of all the clients supported and reporting of incidents to produce monitoring data for RHF and Statutory Services
If requested by the client to accompany them in the initial casework meeting.
To attend and make effective use of line management and supervision
To operate at all times within RHF’s policies and procedures

PERSON SPECIFICATION

Person Specification – RHF Community Supporter

E = Essential, D = Desirable

Experience

1	Direct experience (paid or unpaid) of providing support to people from diverse cultural and faith backgrounds	E
2	Experience of liaising and working in partnership with statutory and voluntary agencies	E
3	Strong and demonstrable commitment to human rights and anti- discriminatory practice	E
4	Lived experience of racist and faith hate incidents	D

Skills

5	Confident communication skills to professionally respond to a wide range of people, including forum members, service users, visitors, partners and trustees	E
6	Excellent communication skills including written and spoken English	E
7	Basic marketing/promotional skills including social media	D
8	Understanding of the principles of diversity and equality:	E
9	Proven ability to provide sensitive and appropriate support to people from diverse cultural and faith backgrounds experiencing difficult situations	E
10	Proven track record of supporting or advocating for successful outcomes for clients, or similar	E
11	Proven ability to manage a busy work schedule under pressure and prioritise your workload	E
12	Proven ability to work on your own initiative	E
13	Proven ability to write reports to an appropriate standard	E
14	Ability to maintain professional boundaries and maintain objectivity when faced with people in distress	E
15	Proven ability to work effectively with other professionals and to show persistence in supporting clients	E
16	Proven experience of outreach and community engagement, or similar	E
17	Speaker of a community language in Brighton & Hove	D

Knowledge

18	Knowledge of the diverse Brighton & Hove communities and groups	E
19	Good working knowledge of MS Office including Word, Excel, PowerPoint, Publisher and Outlook	E
20	Knowledge of safeguarding issues and procedures	E
21	Knowledge and understanding of the issues faced by Black, Asian and Minority Ethnic people, Migrant and Refugee communities and Faith communities who experience hate incidents, harassment or other forms of abuse	E
22	Understanding of intersectionality of the diverse people in Brighton & Hove and how to apply these to support work	E
23	Basic understanding of Brighton & Hove’s Community Safety Team and the criminal justice system	D
24	Understanding and knowledge of racist and faith hate incidents and how this affects people and communities	E
25	Understanding of how to keep sensitive and confidential information in line with the Data Protection Act	E

Personal Contribution

26	Ability to be flexible in an ever changing work environment	E
27	Commitment to and understanding of RHF’s aims and objectives and how the organisation operates:	E
28	Committed and reliable member of team. Understanding of the important impact of the role within RHF	E
29	To be able to work flexibly to include early evenings	E
30	To be available to work on either a Monday or a Wednesday	E

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