Bexley is an outer London Borough with the best of both worlds, located between the hustle and bustle of London and the Garden of England, Kent. Within the borough we have award winning parks, open spaces and listed heritage sites.

The Communications and Marketing Team work closely with Councillors, senior leadership and staff at all levels and in all departments to help deliver the Council’s strategic outcomes. We manage external and internal communications across a wide range of channels, with an increasing emphasis on digital communications and social media.

Are you up for the challenge of helping us recruit new carers to support Bexley’s looked after children through our fostering and Host and Support services?

We take our responsibility to our young people very seriously. Ensuring that more of them have the chance to grow up in a caring and safe environment is one of our most important priorities.

You will be part of a friendly and professional team working to make a positive difference to the lives of Bexley people. The role will give you the opportunity to work in the Communications & Marketing Team and with colleagues in our ‘outstanding’ children’s social care service.

We need your help to deliver real results. The work will be pressured, but you will be part of a team that needs your energy, ideas and practical skills. 

The role is a tremendous opportunity to gain experience and take the important next step in your career. 

We will invest in you in return for your investment in our families and children. 

The Role:

• Working with the Placement Team the role will take responsibility for communications and marketing for the recruitment of new foster carers.  
• Developing and delivering a marketing and communications plan, including a range of new and traditional channels, designed to encourage new foster carers to Bexley. The plan will be measurable and deliver value for money. 
• Managing the foster carer and Host and Support areas of the Bexley website.  
• You will be part of the busy Communications and Marketing team, which deals with communications and marketing issues across all Council services.  

Requirements:

• Excellent communications and organisational skills.
• Experience in a busy communications team.
• Experience of running communications and marketing campaigns.
• Ability to be flexible and work well with several different teams, with tight deadlines and high expectations.
• Occasional attendance at evening or weekend events or meetings.
• Knowledge and experience of using and evaluating the use of social media platforms Twitter, Facebook, YouTube, Instagram.
• Experience of using website content management systems.

We will offer you in return a package that includes a competitive salary, an excellent pension scheme and generous annual leave plus bank holidays. For more information on the benefits package on offer please refer to the Candidate Information document attached.

Please refer to the Job Description attached for more information.

For further information please contact Jane Parson on 020 3045 4868 or e-mail jane.parson@bexley.gov.uk

We reserve the right to close adverts earlier than the closing date.

For the full list of essential and desirable criteria for this role then please refer to the Person Specification within the Job Description attached.

This authority is committed to safeguarding and promoting the welfare of children and young people and vulnerable adults and expects all staff and volunteers to share this commitment.

This post is considered by the authority to be a customer-facing position; as such it falls within scope of the Code of Practice on English language requirement for public sector workers. The council therefore has a statutory duty under Part 7 of the Immigration Act 2016 to ensure that post holders have a command of spoken English sufficient for the effective performance of the job requirements. The appropriate standards are set out in the JD/Person Specification. These will be applied during the recruitment/selection and probationary stages.    

Use the ‘Apply for vacancy’ button.

Please note that the system has a one-hour time limit. We would advise you to prepare your answers separately and then copy and paste into the online form once finalised and have your CV and/or Supporting statement ready to upload.

If any mandatory fields are missing, a pop-up box will appear at the top of the page advising which sections require completion. Please check your Junk email for any correspondence.

Additional Information

As a disability confident employer Bexley welcomes applications from people with all disabilities, including hidden disabilities and mental health conditions. We will interview any disabled applicant who meets the minimum criteria. If you require reasonable adjustments to be made to any part of the recruitment process due to your disability, please contact us on  recruitment@bexley.gov.uk

This role may be available as a development opportunity through secondment for the Council’s existing employees.  The Council’s Secondment Scheme can be found here. If this option is of interest, please contact the recruiting manager.