About the Hope and Healing project
Hope and Healing is a five-year project funded by the National Lottery Community Fund. Through the project, we’re exploring new ways of putting community and relationships at the heart of mental health support.
In Hope and Healing, we recognise that both individuals and communities can experience trauma and that our mental health is largely determined by our social circumstances (WHO, 2014). We know, too, that relationships are central to good mental health. We need to take a holistic approach if we want to create better mental health, and one that recognises the deep relationship between mental health and social justice. This includes the role organisations and wider systems have in creating the conditions for everyone to thrive – including those working within them.
In Hope and Healing, we’re bringing together a range of approaches and experiences to build new ways of responding to mental health that are focused on communities, trauma, relationships and social justice. This includes:
Theory and practice from psychology, especially about the role that trauma plays in communities
A focus on relationships and connectionCommunity development approaches that focus on strengths and assetsA holistic approach that sees people in contextAn ecological or whole-system approach, working alongside communities and servicesA social justice approach to mental health that recognises mental health is deeply connected to inequity and inequalityA commitment to listening and hearing people’s voice and stories: being seen and heard is a mental health intervention.
The project’s three strands bring together intensive work in and alongside communities, with compassionate support for services and professionals, and creative campaigning approaches.
Communities of Hope: self-sustaining community groups across three areas, using an evidence-based trauma-informed community development approach. We will develop peer-to-peer support networks, exploring how to provide interventions that are trauma-informed, community-led and culturally sensitive – using storytelling for systems change through a place-based approach to improving community wellbeing.
Hope Academy: learning networks, tools and support for people and professionals seeking to make change via place-based communities of practice, national events and resources about how to create change through a relational and trauma-informed approach – drawing on learning from the community groups and professionals, co-created for authenticity of voice.
Campaign for Hope: national hope and healing conversations – a series of listening exercises and campaigns for change using our Truth Project approach, to hear direct experiences of working / living in traumatised systems and communities so we can advocate with people, policy-makers and leaders across the UK for change.
Platfform will work alongside our core project partners: Save the Children Wales, Groundswell and Homeless Network Scotland. We’ll have core project sites in Wales, Scotland and England. Our work will focus in particular on housing and homelessness and support for families.
You can find more information about the project at: https://platfform.org/hope-and-healing/
Team Information, Job Description and Person Specification
The Hope and Healing team:
The Hope and Healing team is a relatively new and growing team in Platfform. We work closely with colleagues across the organisation, and with our project partners in Wales, Scotland and England, as well as community partners.
Year 1 of the project (April 2025 – March 2026) was our scoping and development phase, and we’re now moving into our delivery phase (Years 2-4). The final year of the project (Year 5) will be our evaluation and dissemination phase. We know that the work will continue to develop and evolve because we are responding to what we learn in our work. This means that the project includes an element of uncertainty and unpredictability, and we’re not afraid to change course if something isn’t working or if we learn something new.
We’re building a team that brings together a range of experience and expertise to help us deliver this ambitious and varied programme of work. We’re looking for team members who can contribute their experience and expertise, as well as listen, learn and adapt. We’re looking for people who are curious, flexible and collaborative.
Note: This job is being advertised as a permanent role. The contract will be until 31st March 2029 (Years 2-4 of the Hope and Healing project). There is potential for the contract to be extended further into all or part of Year 5 of the project.
Communities and Development Partner: Job Purpose
The Communities and Development Partner will work alongside project partners as we develop and deliver community-based work in Wales, focusing on our partnership with Save the Children in Bettws, Newport. You’ll bring experience of and expertise in community-based work and be able to work directly with and be led by people in communities that face disadvantage and trauma, as well as professionals from different levels of the system. You'll be able to hold space for and respond to distress, both at individual and community level. You’ll also be able to build strong relationships with partners, including offering healthy challenge and meaningful collaboration.
You’ll contribute to the ongoing development of Hope and Healing, including supporting and leading activities that will help us deliver our ambition as the project develops. You’ll be able to draw on research and other evidence to shape work, You'll help gather and mobilise learning from the project, with a particular focus on listening to people’s stories.
You’ll be part of our Hope and Healing Wales Communities Hub, as we develop our approach to putting the idea that ‘community is a mental health intervention’ into practice. The Hub is led by the Head of Hope and Healing and includes our Assistant Psychologist, Communities and Development Partner, and Communities and Development Manager – Wales.
Job Description
Purpose: To support the development and delivery of the Hope and Healing project by bringing knowledge and experience of strengths-based and trauma-informed community-based practice.
Leading areas of community-based, stakeholder and development work, including delivering group sessions in communities.
This will be a highly collaborative role, working in partnership with Platfform expert teams, and the communities, partners and professionals involved in the project. The role will evolve as the project develops.
Your responsibilities
Work alongside partners in agreed communities to support and shape the development of their Communities of Hope, ensuring that the work ‘digs deeper’, is community-led and fully aligned to Platfform’s values and principles of being trauma-informed and strengths-based.
Lead the local development and delivery of the Embrace project, working with relevant colleagues to develop and evaluate content, approach, outcomes, and further opportunities for expansion. NB The Embrace project brings together trauma-informed approaches, information about mental health and reflective spaces for parents and carers in community settings.
Be a holder/ container for distress and community/ partnership challenges, making proactive use of support structures.
Manage agreed work packages, bringing strong planning and project management skills.
Develop, deliver and coordinate agreed Hope and Healing activities in Wales and with the wider partnership as the project develops, e.g. supporting general project coordination, spreading models and approaches, training, research, campaigns, events. This includes mobilising learning from local community work to Hope Academy and Campaign for Hope.
Develop strong and collaborative relationships with partner organisations, as well as with people working in our project communities and at different relevant layers of the local system, to build connections that support impactful project delivery.
Contribute to the development of project learning and evaluation, leading agreed areas of work; this may include internal learning cycles, story collection, project reports, learning resources, theoretical models, and dissemination activities.
Lead and contribute to listening, scoping and research activities to support the development of the Hope and Healing project.
Demonstrate strong project management skills, coordinating multiple activities to ensure work is achieved and meets standards and values, and appropriate escalation of issues.
Plan and manage your workload to ensure that deadlines are met, including fulfilling monitoring and reporting requirements and that health and safety, safeguarding and compliance requirements are adhered to in your area of work.
Proactively develop and apply your knowledge of trauma-informed, relational practice and social justice approaches and methodologies that align with the project (e.g. coproduction, anti-oppressive approaches) so you can both implement and advise others on these approaches.
Be a proactive and collaborative member of the Hope and Healing team, demonstrating curiosity and flexibility and the ability to work with complexity and uncertainty.
Contribute to Platfform’s organisation-wide approach to community-based work, as part of our Hope and Healing Wales Communities Hub.
Note: This job description is indicative of the range of current duties and responsibilities for the post, it is not comprehensive. It is inevitable that the duties will change to reflect organisational change, and it is essential therefore that is regarded with a degree of flexibility, so that changing needs and circumstances can be met. All changes will be discussed with the postholder.
Person Specification
Essential criteria
We’re looking for someone who:
Has experience in developing and delivering community-based work that uses strengths-based or asset-based approaches.
Has experience in delivering group-based programmes in communities.
Understands the factors affecting mental health and the connection between mental health and social justice, and is able to communicate this to different audiences.
Has the skills to work collaboratively with stakeholders, partners and community members to develop and deliver projects, and proven experience in delivering this kind of work.
Has experience of delivering inclusive and participatory approaches that seek to address inequities and rebalance power e.g. co-production.
Is able to draw on different kinds of research and evidence to shape and develop work, to put theory into practice and reflect on the impact of this.
Has strong workload management skills and is able to organise work for themselves and across a team to deliver timely results.
Is curious, flexible, collaborative, willing to learn and listen, and to share their skills and experience with others.
Is comfortable working with complexity and uncertainty.
Takes a trauma-informed, relational and strengths-based approach to their work and has a strong connection to Platfform’s purpose and values.
Demonstrates self-awareness and a commitment to their own development, including through using supervision appropriately to agree and review work goals, as well as considering the personal/professional implications of the work.
Is willing and able to travel to meet the requirements of the project.
Can demonstrate capability in the use of Microsoft 365 to communicate effectively using Word, Excel, Outlook, SharePoint and Teams.
Desirable criteria
We’d also love to find someone who:
Has experience of facilitating different kinds research, engagement and listening exercises with a range of audiences to understand needs and opportunities, and can generate learning and insights from a range of sources and communicate this effectively in different formats.
Has experience of developing and delivering training, support and workshops, ideally with a mental health focus.
Has a mental health qualification.
Other information
Working arrangements
This is a hybrid role with regular travel. This will include visiting project partners and face-to-face working with the Hope and Healing team. Staff will work from a Platfform office at least once a week to support collaboration and relational working practices; this may increase at different stages of the project and to engage with other Platfform activities.
The job is being advertised as full time. We are open to other part-time working requests that will still enable you to fulfil the role.
Checks and references
If you are successful and are offered the role, you will be asked to complete an enhanced DBS check (Disclosure and Barring Service), right to work in the UK checks and reference details as part of the onboarding process. Following receipt of satisfactory references and onboarding checks, a start date will be arranged with you.
How to apply
If you are interested in this role, please press Apply on the Platfform recruitment website and complete the application form.
You’ll be asked to write a personal statement which should address the criteria outlined in the person specification. We’re really interested in you and your experiences so advise against using AI.
We anticipate that formal interviews will be held in person in Cardiff on Thursday 17th September.
This role has the potential to cover a wide range of skills and areas of experience. Your working approaches are important to us as well as your experience, and we’re still keen to hear from you if this role feels right for you but if you don’t quite meet all the criteria.
Contact information
If you’d like an informal chat about the role, please get in touch with Rhian Pitt, Communities and Development Manager – rhianpitt@platfform.org.
Hope and Healing is funded by the National Lottery Community Fund and delivered by Platfform, in partnership with Groundswell, Save the Children Wales and Homeless Network Scotland.
About Platfform
At Platfform we have a vision of ‘sustainable wellbeing for all’. It’s a big vision in a big and complicated world, but one that we are passionate about.
We work alongside people experiencing challenges with their mental health, and with communities who want to create a greater sense of connection, ownership and wellbeing in the places that they live.
We are part of a growing movement of people and organisations who do not believe society’s current ‘helping’ systems are fit for purpose. We know that these systems require radical change in order to really contribute to our shared vison of ‘sustainable wellbeing for all.’
We are testing and developing an asset based, trauma informed and healing focused approach to our work, as a response to the deficit based, traumatising and often damaging approaches experienced by many people when seeking help.
We have two core purpose statements:
To change the narrative around mental health, offering up an alternative to the dominant paradigm of psychiatric diagnosis. This alternative focuses on the role that trauma, life experiences and socio-economic circumstances have on our mental health and our ability to recover. We pursue this change to help broaden public perceptions, and to transform how people experiencing mental distress can ask for and receive help.
To make society’s 'helping systems' work better for people having the toughest times. In the first stages of our strategy, we will focus on systems around mental health, housing, homelessness, and young people.
Everything we do forms part of achieving our purpose and everything you do will have these two purpose statements in mind.
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