Support and Development Worker (Cambridge, Essex, Suffolk, Norfolk, London)

Department: England Service Team

Reports to: Senior Support & Development Worker

Contract type: Fixed term contract up to 24/12/26 (Maternity Cover)

Hours: 21 hours a week over 3 days, must include Fridays

Location: Home based – with occasional travel to Cambridge and across Essex, Suffolk, Norfolk, London and neighbouring areas. Occasional travel across wider areas and nationally will be required.

Closing date: Wednesday 25th February 2026 at 11pm

Interviews: Friday 6th March 2026

Purpose of the role

To deliver a high-quality service to and facilitate opportunities for individuals with spina bifida and/or hydrocephalus and their families/carers through Shine membership. To empower and enable members living with the conditions to lead healthy and happy lives through greater independence, better condition management and by creating links to the Shine community across England. This post will bring a real focus to the Essex, Suffolk, and Norfolk area, and will be an exciting opportunity to engage with members and develop and deliver the services we offer. We work with members of all ages from our Little Stars aged between 0 – 12, young people are members of our FIRE project and we have established adult support. Working alongside our multi skilled, established team, you will be supporting members across all age groups and building on the great foundations already in place.

The role is home based but you will be required to attend clinic at Addenbrooke's Hospital Cambridge on the first Friday of every month. You may also be required to cover other clinics, events in London and meet members one to one where necessary within your allocated area of Essex, Suffolk & Norfolk, and occasionally across wider areas and nationally including meetings at our head office in Peterborough.

Core Role

• To attend and represent Shine at Addenbrooke's Hospital clinic in Cambridge on the 1st Friday of every month and to cover other clinics where required.
• Delivering Shine’s welcome process for new members in the allocated area and nationally.
• To provide information to individuals, families, carers affected by spina bifida and/or hydrocephalus including hard to reach communities living within your area.
• To provide advice, support and guidance to enable people with spina bifida and/or hydrocephalus to access the correct benefits to become financially stable, the right services to improve their health and well-being, and to better co-ordinate their support and independence through a variety of methods.
• To refer individual members and/or their families/carers to the most appropriate source of expertise and support in Shine’s Health team and other designated leads within the organisation, or signpost to external agencies as appropriate.
• To develop age-specific groups and peer support networks which will provide opportunities for people with spina bifida and/or hydrocephalus to connect and interact, enabling social opportunities and to share experiences, support and learn from each other.
• To work with and develop opportunities for Shine volunteers.
• To contribute to the delivery of regional and national programme of events to Shine’s membership, based on identified need and interests, geographical location and age. These will be face to face and virtual events.
• To provide information to professionals working with those individuals and families affected by spina bifida and/or hydrocephalus.
• To raise greater awareness of spina bifida and/or hydrocephalus amongst professionals, external organisations and the general public through presentations, training and attendance at professional events.
• To actively promote membership of Shine to people with the relevant conditions.
• To keep clear and accurate records for monitoring and evaluation using our Salesforce database system.
• To work with other service, fundraising, marketing, trust and foundations colleagues and Shine’s membership to identify and seize potential fundraising opportunities for long-term sustainability of the work.
• To prepare and keep up to date a directory of relevant contacts across the area and to share relevant information with colleagues.
• To undertake administrative duties as required of the role.
• Any other duties in line with the job role.

Person Specification

• Ability to travel across the designated area and to attend clinic at Addenbrooke's Hospital, Cambridge on the 1st Friday of every month and to cover other clinics where required.
• Flexible working hours. This will include some evenings and weekends.
• Ability to work from home.
• The ability to be motivated and work on your own initiative with lone working from home, whilst also travelling across the area and region to be part of the wider dispersed team.
• Full Enhanced DBS checks and referencing will be completed.

Experience and Qualifications - Essential

• At least two years’ recent experience of delivering support and advice services.
• Experience of working with people of all ages with disabilities.
• At least two years’ experience of advising on one or more of the following: health and wellbeing; independence; benefits; education and learning; employment; developing friendships and social skills; reducing isolation; social care; housing.
• Experience of developing and delivering opportunities to enable and empower people with disabilities to achieve their goals towards independence.

Knowledge, Skills, and Abilities - Essential

• Understanding of spina bifida and hydrocephalus and of the issues and challenges faced by people living with these conditions.
• Ability to work with people individually and to facilitate and run group activities and events.
• Excellent communication skills both verbally and written.
• IT literate with a good knowledge of computer systems and programmes (e.g. Word, Excel, PowerPoint) and use of databases.
• A non-judgemental approach to working with people.

Experience and Qualifications - Desirable

• Hold a qualification in a health, nursing, social care or disability related field.
• Experience of working in the third sector in a paid or unpaid capacity.

Knowledge, Skills, and Abilities - Desirable

• Understanding of the role peer support plays in enhancing services and support to members.
• An awareness and understanding of how to use social media and its effectiveness in reducing social isolation.

In return, Shine will offer you:

• A competitive salary of £28,471 (pro-rata for part-time hours)
• Regular working hours, and no shift work (some very occasional weekends or evenings)
• 25 days holiday plus bank holidays + additional discretionary leave between Christmas and New Year (pro-rata for part-time hours)
• Additional annual leave due to length of service
• Opportunity to purchase additional annual leave
• Broadband allowance
• Access to our Employee Support Programme and Mental Health First Aiders
• Support to learn and develop

How to apply:

Shine is a Disability Confident employer and will offer guaranteed interviews if a disabled applicant meets the minimum criteria for the job. If you would like to discuss the role, please contact Sarah Carrier, England Services Manager by email to sarah.carrier@shinecharity.org.uk to arrange a convenient time for a call. To apply please submit your CV and supporting statement, which should outline your interest and explain how you meet the role criteria to recruitment@shinecharity.org.uk. We understand that you may wish to use AI tools to help you with some aspects of your application but we do expect tailored applications which are personalised to your experiences and not generic applications which are completely AI generated. We encourage candidates to be transparent about AI usage in their applications. Applications without a supporting statement will not be accepted.

Closing date: Wednesday 25th February 2026 at 11pm

Interviews: Friday 6th March 2026

Please note: we reserve the right to interview suitable candidates before the closing date, therefore we encourage applications as soon as possible.