St Mary's Church Selly Oak: Children & Families Worker

25th April 2024

Employer: The PCC of St Mary’s Church, Selly Oak

Line manager: The Incumbent

Place of work: Mainly to be based at St Mary’s Church, Bristol Road, Selly Oak, B29 6ND

Hours of employment: 16 hours per week, usually to include Sunday mornings and at least one evening The post is for a fixed term contract for 3 years subject to funding

Holiday: 5 weeks holidays plus bank holidays (pro rata)

Salary: £9,950.72-£11,075.65 (£21,767-£24,228 full time equivalent)

Background

We are an open, inclusive, and diverse Christian community with a vision to proclaim and celebrate the love of God for all. We encourage the exploration of spirituality through prayer, worship, and the Eucharist. Through social events and activities, we hope to offer a warm welcome to everyone, both those exploring faith and those seeking friendship. Outreach is a priority for us, especially to children, young people, and their families.

In recent years we have grown in cultural diversity. We have also attracted a number of families with young children who enjoy worshipping with us and being part of our ‘Junior Church’, which meets in the church hall during the 10am Parish Eucharist in term time. Some parents enjoy helping with Junior Church, but few are confident to lead, so a key aspect of this role will be to grow and enable a solid base of volunteer leaders for our work with children. St Mary’s Junior Club, for primary school aged children, meets in our church hall on a Wednesday evening from 6.00-7.00pm and attracts a small but enthusiastic group of children, but keeping it going has become a challenge. We hope that our new children and families worker will take on its leadership and also be excited by the possibility of enabling it to evolve into something new.

We enjoy a good relationship with St Mary’s CE primary school, welcoming the school into church at the end of every half term for school services. The clergy also regularly take Collective Worship in school. There is plenty of scope to develop our work with St Mary’s CE, as well as with the other local schools in our parish, most of whom come to church for occasional educational visits.

A new initiative for this year is ‘coffee stop’, where we are offering parents free refreshments in our church hall one morning a week after they have dropped children at school. We are hoping, through this, to grow our relationships with parents and carers, so another key aspect of this role will be to help us to build on this and develop our outreach to children and families in our wider parish.

Currently, most of our provision for children is focussed on those who are 4-9 years, with very little provision for older children. We are excited by the prospect of the right person joining our team who can take the lead in our existing work with children and families, thereby helping us to create a more secure children’s work from which to develop work with older children and young people.

This Role Description describes all that we are looking to achieve through our Childrens and Families Work as supported by this role. However, we are aware that individuals will come with their own strengths, experience, and ways of working and so we are more than happy to receive applications or enquiries from those who can respond positively to the majority of this Role Description and explore how the other areas might be achieved.

There is scope for this post to be extended beyond the initial 3 years, but this would be dependent upon further funding becoming available.

Job Description

The postholder will be expected to:

Lead and grow our existing Sunday morning Junior Church (Sundays at 10am in term time).
Develop our mid-week activities for children and families. This currently means taking on the leadership of Junior Club (Wednesdays 6-7pm in term time) and being part of ‘coffee stop’ (Thursdays 8.45-10am in term time). We hope the postholder will see the potential for outreach in these mid-week activities and take the lead in developing further new initiatives eg: ‘Stay and Play’.
Safely recruit, train and support volunteers for all our work with children.
Take a lead in our offering of pastoral care for children and their families.
Work with ministry team to engage children in our worshipping community, particularly helping to facilitate the participation of children and young people in our All Age Eucharists.
Become involved in our work with schools, which may include taking collective worship and hosting educational visits at church.
Ensure best practice in safeguarding is followed, including DBS clearance and training for those who work with our children and young people
Take an active part in our church community life as far as possible.
Take responsibility for own continuing training and development, building on existing skills and

drawing on the expertise of others to develop work with children and families.

Undertake regular supervision and appraisal and be proactive in ensuring personal support networks and personal spiritual growth.

Person Specification

Our children and families’ worker should be/have:

An initiator, able to think strategically and develop our work and outreach with children and families, within the context of the church’s vision and agreed priorities for mission and ministry.
Leadership skills and experience.
An ability to build relationships with a variety of cultures, ages, and personalities.
Proven ability to recruit, train and sustain volunteers.
Ability to work collaboratively, with experience and skills in teamworking.
Good administrative and organisational skills, able to plan a programme of children’s work.
Ability to work within a budget set by the PCC in the management of resources for children’s work.
Experience of working with under 14s in some capacity (can include voluntary).
Pastoral skills, alongside a commitment to good practice in the exercise of pastoral care, with attention to professional boundaries and safeguarding.
Good communication skills, able to communicate with parents and caregivers, the ministry team and PCC, as well as the worshipping community of our church and the wider parish.
A passion for Christian formation, excited to see children and adults grow in faith.
Able to demonstrate a commitment to the vision, mission, and Christian values of the Church, supporting our aspiration to be an open, inclusive, and welcoming community for all.

Additional Important Skills:

I.T. literate and competent with social media
Knowledge of current legislation relevant to those working with children and young people
Fully committed to the safeguarding of children
Commitment to racial justice and an ability to support the contribution of people from diverse

backgrounds and varying ages

Good standard of education in line with the requirements of the post

Additional information

The post is subject to completing a probationary period of 6 months.

Due to the nature of the role, there is a genuine occupational requirement for the post holder to be a committed and practising Christian.

Terms & Conditions

Salary: £9,950.72 - £11,075.65 (£21,767-£24,228 full time equivalent)

Hours of work: This is a part-time post of 16 hours per week, usually including Wednesdays (5.30-7.30pm), Thursdays (8.30 – 10.30am) and Sundays (9.00am to 12 noon) with other hours worked flexibly, to include occasional evening and other weekend work. The post is for a fixed term contract for 3 years.

Pension: The organisation will fulfil its obligations under the pensions auto enrolment legislation. You will be notified of any entitlement you may have under that scheme.

Holiday entitlement: 5 weeks per year plus pro-rated Bank holidays

Employer: St Mary’s PCC

Responsible to: Incumbent

For an informal conversation about the role, please contact Revd Hazel White (Vicar) on 0121 4713517.

Closing Date for Applications: Sunday 2^nd June 2024

Interviews will be held on: Sunday 9^th June 2024

Application Process

To apply for the post, please send us a completed application form, together with a copy of your CV with a covering letter explaining why you are applying and why you think you’re a good fit for the role.

Please include two referees. One referee should be able to refer to your recent experience of working with children (in a voluntary or paid capacity). These should be emailed to the Incumbent (vicar@stmarysellyoak.org.uk) no later than 5pm on Sunday 2^nd June 2024.

Interviews will be held on Sunday 9^th June 2024. You would be very welcome to join us on a Sunday morning to gain some understanding of the context for this role, and who we are as a worshipping church community.

The PCC of St Mary’s Selly Oak is committed to safeguarding and promoting the welfare of children, young people, and vulnerable adults. All post holders are expected to share this commitment. All appointments to roles undertaking regulated activity are subject to pre-appointment checks, including references and a satisfactory Enhanced DBS Check.