Job Title: Refugee Advocacy Assistant x 4
Location: Office-based; open to flexible working with a preference for London, Birmingham and Leeds, with some travel including to partner meetings.
Hours: Part time (8 hours/ week, Monday to Friday – day to be arranged)
Salary: £21,547.5/annum pro rata (Actual: £4,596.80/annum, subject to annual cost of living review).There is opportunitand salary increase subject to funding.
Leave: 23 days annual leave including Bank Holidays rising after 24 months by 1 day after each year of service to maximum of 28 days per year.
Contract: 1 year fixed term contract with possibility of extension depending on funding availability
Reporting to: Advocacy Lead
Closing date: 5pm, Saturday, 25 June 2022
Interview date: Weeks commencing 4 & 11 July 2022. Interview will be held in person, in 2 stages.
African Rainbow Family is looking for four dynamic part time Refugee Advocacy Assistants passionately committed to upholding the rights of LGBTIQ refugees and people seeking asylum at a critical time for the future of the asylum system and the rights of refugees. Each Advocacy Assistant will be local to either Manchester or London or Leeds or Birmingham and work one day a week at our centre local to them.
We are a small but friendly and specialist team that campaigns and advocates for the rights of LGBTIQ refugees and people seeking asylum from African heritage and wider BAME. We work with an extensive network of frontline partners to advocate for progressive change in the asylum and immigration system. We are based in Manchester, Birmingham, Leeds, London and Cardiff.
Key Responsibilities
- Registering prospective new service users to and, when possible, making referrals to African Rainbow Family’s Moving-On and Integration and/or Campaign services, solicitors etc;
- Providing non-legal and general information and signposting regarding the asylum process;
- Visiting people in detention to provide support and collect or deliver documents for solicitors and others;
- Liaising with solicitors in connection to specific cases e.g. attending legal appointments with vulnerable people seeking asylum;
- Facilitating and enabling service users to write their personal statements (this process may take several sessions), writing letters of support, writing case reports on the background and current life of the claimant;
- Providing one-to-one support when people are in vulnerable situations;
- Making referrals to Freedom from Torture, Helen Bamber Foundation, Medical Justice etc.;
- Working with doctors, social workers, mental health professionals and others supporting people seeking asylum;
Benefits include:
- 23 days pro rata annual leave including Bank Holidays
- Equipment to support remote working.
- Flexible working policy.
- Pension scheme.
- Development and growth opportunities.
- Flexibility around other commitments for part-time staff.
- Paid staff day off on their birthday
- Salary review
- Employee reward scheme
- Employee wellbeing support
- Paid Sick leave after 6 months
Attachments
- Job description and person specifications
- Application and equal opportunity forms
- Safer Recruitment Policy
HOW TO APPLY: Download the job description and person specification from here, application form here and our Safer Recruitment Policy here. Email your completed application form and optional monitoring form to recruitment@africanrainbowfamily.org. For more information on this role or for an informal discussion please contact Aderonke Apata, Founder and CEO: 07711285567. If you know of someone who might be interested in this vacancy, please ask them to get in touch.
You may wish to check our other job opportunities here.
We welcome applications from people of all abilities/disabilities and backgrounds as we believe that each person brings their own valuable experiences to what we do. We encourage people with lived experience of the UK asylum system to apply. The successful candidate must have the right to work in the UK, will be required to undergo an enhanced DBS check and to disclose all non-protected criminal records at the point of conditional job offer.