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Role
Description

The Hearts and Minds Partnership

The Hearts and Minds Partnership is a collaboration of two England-based perinatal mental health charities: Acacia Family Support and Smile Group, established to connect, support and celebrate the VCSE sector in this space. We are a thriving community of grassroots perinatal mental health services committed to sharing, learning and creating a coherent voice for our sector.

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Our programme of work focuses around:

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  • An England-wide interactive map of quality VCSE perinatal mental health services

  • The development of trusted spaces to share learning, make new connections and discuss challenges

  • The creation and delivery of dedicated training to support the emerging and established services in the grassroots PMH sector

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What is a Root Maker?

A Root Maker works alongside the core Hearts and Minds Partnership Team and contributing to our Phase Two stream of work, funded by The National Lottery Community Fund since July 2023. The role is created to support the team to develop our programme of work with particular emphasis on equity, diversity and inclusion.

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The grassroots PMH community is rich, diverse, and brimming with insight. Root Makers work in a genuinely collaborative way with the Partnership in order to shape a more representative programme. As such, there is an organic nature to the work of the Root Makers, with specific tasks and priorities emerging from the ground up. This requires a level of flexibility including:

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  • Helping to shape the vision and direction of our EDI work

  • Reviewing our map and website through the lens of EDI

  • Influencing and potentially contributing to the direction of our trusted spaces

  • Influencing and potentially contributing to the direction of our training offer

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Whilst the brief seems broad, we are committed to ensuring that Root Makers feel supported and held as equals throughout the process, which includes keeping the workload realistic within the established time boundaries.

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Attributes & Experience

  • Experience of working within the Perinatal Mental Health VCSE sector

  • A keen interest in supporting and shaping the PMH VCSE sector, especially in relation to increasing its ability to reflect the needs of diverse communities

  • Skills in active listening, facilitation and reflection - with the capacity to see multiple viewpoints, and have the ability for strategic oversight

  • Sharing our ethos of balancing ‘hearts’ and ‘minds’ - combining integrity, compassion and meaningful connection with rigour, strong foundations and evidence-based rationale

  • The time required for the role – we are only too aware of how busy life can be working within our sector, so we want to ensure this role feels manageable alongside any other responsibilities

  • Reflecting the diversity of the PMH VCSE offer in England and also offering insight of EDI issues through lived experience e.g. fathers/non-birthing partners, young parents, diverse ethnic backgrounds, gender/sexuality, disability and neurodivergence as well as specialist areas of PMH e.g. baby loss

  • The ability to question and challenge their own biases, explore sensitive topics, have difficult conversations, ask courageous questions with the capacity to see different perspectives

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Role Commitments

  • Between 15 and 20 days work across the duration of the project

  • The entire time span of the Root Makers project will run until around May 2026 but the first phase will take us up to the end of August 2024

  • Attendance at meetings with other Root Makers and Hearts & Minds staff. These will predominantly be online and travel expenses would be reimbursed if face-to-face meetings are required

  • Providing feedback and influencing the direction of our workstreams within the context of EDI using online platforms e.g. Slack, Jam Board, by email etc

  • Contributing to public facing events on Zoom and at a national in-person event

  • Designing and delivering content for our online training platform, Smart Space

 

NB: The exact activities and contributions required from each Root Maker will be dependent on areas of expertise and availability.

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What do Root Makers receive?

  • Payment (on a freelance basis) of £200 a day

  • An opportunity to help shape the sector through the lens of their unique perspective

  • A chance to be rooted in a collaborative peer community to create greater connection and opportunities for learning

  • Increased visibility and leadership opportunities within a reputable national community

  • A chance to be part of a friendly, warm and supportive core team

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This role is funded by the National Lottery Community Fund.

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