Job Description
Wood are seeking a Community Liaison Officer (CLO) / Community Relations Officer (CRO) for a project based in the Teesside. This is a contract position and we're seeking people from the local area.
The role of the Community Liaison Officer (CLO) is to support management of relations with residents and community stakeholders living close to Teesside project sites/facilities. This could potentially involve several thousand people due to the footprint of the projects.
The CLO will act as a frontline engagement lead in the region, be the key point of contact for community members and will play an integral role in implementing Client’s overall community relations strategy at the local level.
The CLO will support the development and delivery of a community engagement plan to help build relationships with local communities based on trust and mutual respect. Key elements of the plan will be to communicate the goals and impact / benefits of the projects to the community; represent and respond to community concerns and grievances; ensure issues are resolved promptly, fairly and consistently; and secure and seek to maintain broad and long-term community support for Client’s activities.
Remarkable people, trusted by clients to design and advance the world
Responsibilities
1. Community insight: Build an understanding of the community profile, expectations, needs, interests and concerns. Share insights for internal discussion and decision making.
2. Community stakeholder mapping: Map community stakeholders, including neighbors and their needs, interests and concerns to inform project decision-making.
3. Information sharing: Establish an effective information sharing mechanism to keep the community up to date about the projects and their progress, including supporting the setup of a community Liaison Group Forum. Provide regular feedback to project teams about community concerns and priorities and recommend intervention strategies where needed.
4. Community engagement: Arrange and attend community meetings and support coordination, prepare information materials, etc.
5. Community consultation support: Represent Client projects at statutory and non-statutory consultation events to gather community views and manage these responses as part of consultation processes.
6. Community grievance management: Manage verbal or written grievance from the community, including reporting and, working with project team and contractors, take necessary steps to seek a resolution; identify issues/key trends and share with the project team and wider C&EA team.
7. Crisis management: Participate in incident and crisis response training. Support incident and crisis response activities, as required. Explain issues relating to safety, security and emergency risk to community members.
8. Reporting and documentation: Report against key performance indicators (KPIs) and major and minor incidents and emerging issues in the community (‘temperature check’); Report and monitor progress of engagement actions and plans and course correct as needed.
9. Social investment (SI): Promote, coordinate and support implementation of SI initiatives in the region. Provide information to the community on the goals and objectives of initiatives; gather feedback from community members on the effectiveness of the programme to feed into programme assessment and decision-making; and represent Client at relevant SI and stakeholder events.
This role will be a crucial front-line role where the ability to develop and maintain strong relationships will be crucial for the candidate's success in the role and the success of the project(s). A strong candidate will be expected to build on past experiences and demonstrate familiarization with and willingness to adopt best practices/processes around community engagement.
Designing the future. Transforming the world
Qualifications
1. A good understanding of local community expectations, needs, interests and concerns. Knowledge of, or existing relationships with, key figures in the Teesside community.
2. Understanding of local socio-economic and political matters. Familiarity with local geography and some knowledge of local history.
3. Understanding of local views on industry and industrial development in region.
4. Excellent communications skills, both verbal and written. For example:
* Ability to communicate effectively with diverse audiences from different social groups and translate technical jargon into meaningful narratives.
* Ability to articulate procedure (e.g. grievance mechanism or emergency response procedure) to local community members.
1. Ability to build rapport and foster good working relationships with diverse members of the local community.
2. Experience of working as part of multidisciplinary team.
3. Ability to mediate where there is conflict between community concerns and organisational goals.
4. Ability to build relationships and engage with different stakeholder groups, including elected members, community assemblies & other community groups e.g., resident & tenant associations, using appropriate engagement techniques.
5. Ability to assist with formal consultation processes by supporting meetings, taking meeting notes and organizing information.
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