Community Development Worker - Wealden

Responsible to                      SMT

Location Wealden in East Sussex, hybrid working at home and in communities. There is travel in your area and across East Sussex

Salary                                     NJC Scale 24 - £19,475 pro rata (£34,314 FTE)

Hours per week                     21 hours per week

Pension                                  4% employer contribution

Holiday                                   pro rata: 25 days increasing annually plus statutory holidays

Contract                                 Permanent

About 3VA

We are the Voluntary Action for Eastbourne, Lewes and Wealden. We enable and support community groups, voluntary organisations and individuals across East Sussex, to improve quality of life and equality of opportunity for everyone. We represent and advocate for the voluntary and community sector with local government and other statutory authorities.

Purpose and context of the role

• Community Development Workers develop, support, facilitate a vibrant, dynamic and connected voluntary and community sector in East Sussex, building capacity in individuals and groups to support local activities and initiatives which benefit the community; and alongside colleagues delivering Beachy Head Ambassadors, Homes for Ukraine, Wealden Food Partnership and Lewes District Cost of Living programmes.
• Manage the disbursement of £10,000 annually in each of Eastbourne and Wealden the three areas, to support the Key Deliverables set out in Appendix 1.

As a key member of the community development team, you will work with the Community Development Team, individuals, groups and communities in facilitating 3VA’s community development offer. You will actively engage with individuals, groups, partners and stakeholders to make sense of the issues and barriers that affect their communities and support them to bring about change.

Your key activities are:

• Intelligence gathering
• Foundation building
• Community asset identification and development
• Gap identification
• Relationship building
• Facilitating engagement opportunities

The context for our work

3VA holds NAVCA’s Local Infrastructure Quality Award (LIQA) which is also the context for this job role.  The LIQA is closely aligned to four groupings of evidence-based community-centred interventions for wellbeing that share key features and are underpinned by the core concepts of: voice and control; leading people to having a greater say in their lives and health; equity; social connectedness.

3VA’s overall delivery includes:

• Maintaining effective service delivery in the context of local need and 3VA programmes, ensuring communities are well served
• Supporting Community, Stakeholder and Member engagement, using 3VA membership as the tool for continuing engagement
• Developing and delivering general and thematic Community Networks (digitally and face to face) in response to community needs
• Developing and delivering (with support from the Data and Delivery Manager and Senior Management Team) training, including constitution, funding, evaluation, volunteering
• Supporting a collaborative partnership approach with other VCSEs and statutory partners
• Preparing reports for appropriate funding contracts as agreed with commissioners
• Continuing to raise 3VA’s profile and the VCSE
• Supporting the strategic development of 3VA and its membership including consultations, member surveys, project development and funding

The postholder will work as part of 3VA’s community development team

Application Closing Date: 5pm 18th June 2025

CDW Wealden JD 19 05 25

Contact [email protected] for an application form