Coming to a Community Near You – Community Animators

Three community animators will be starting work with ACVO on the 5th July 2010.  The role of these new posts is to engage with people in communities and encourage uptake of employment related activities including services to overcome barriers preventing active engagement in these activities. 

Torry and Woodside are the areas with highest numbers of people on benefits and therefore these areas will be the first to be targeted.  This service will be rolled out to other areas of the city with the highest levels of unemployment, primarily the regeneration areas.

This new role will involve engaging with local community projects and services as well as approaching people through door knocking etc.  The service is targeting people of any age who need help in sourcing advice on getting back to work.

The first two weeks will be a training period and will also develop an action plan detailing areas and actions required to develop this service.  Training will include information on Jobcentre Plus and Skills Development Scotland services as well as visits to each of the Fairer Scotland Fund employability projects and a day’s training delivered by the Cash in Your Pocket Partnership. The community animators will be engaging with local services during this time as well as undergoing risk assessments etc. 

Any help in identifying suitable community links would be much appreciated and if your organisation would like to meet with these staff please contact Ian Paterson, ACVO Chief Executive on (01224) 686050 or Gillian Robertson on  07788692328 in the meantime.  It is key that the community animators are linked closely to community services and events so that they can actively promote these where felt suitable.

The role of these staff is to act as information gatherers and sign post to services that meet the individuals needs to allow them to move forward.  Once they have referred people into services it is then the responsibility of the organisations to take suitable activities forward in their normal business. 

The community animators will also be recording reasons for non engagement so that further analysis can be done in regards to tackling gaps in employability related services or in tackling misguided perceptions.

Contact has been made with the Torry development group, and Woodside employment group and presentations will be arranged for future meetings of these groups.

If you require any further information please contact Ian Paterson or Gillian Robertson on the contact details above.