Development Worker: Faith, Place and Community

Wigan Borough Community First CIC is developing as a sector-led Local Infrastructure Organisation for the voluntary, community, faith and social enterprise sector across Wigan Borough. Our purpose is to create the conditions for communities and organisations to lead, learn, connect, influence and deliver community-led work across the Borough.

This role will focus on faith, place and community development. The postholder will work alongside places of faith, faith-based organisations, community groups, providers, networks and system partners to help faith spaces develop, grow and strengthen their offer in response to local people, local assets and local priorities.

The Development Worker will take a coaching-led, relational and place-based approach. They will listen carefully, build trust, connect people and opportunities, support quality improvement across VCFSE providers, and help ensure the contribution of faith is visible within the Borough’s wider work on belonging, within the overarching strategy of Progress with Unity.

This role is ideal for someone who understands the complexity, richness and sensitivity of faith geography, and who can work confidently across communities of place, identity, belief and experience.

• Build trusted relationships with places of faith and faith-based community organisations across Wigan Borough, recognising their distinct histories, geographies, assets, pressures and contributions.
• Work in a coaching way with faith spaces to help them understand community needs, develop their offer, strengthen governance where needed, improve quality of work and connect into wider opportunities.
• Support a thriving, developing and inclusive Interfaith Network , working with the Chair and network members to strengthen collaboration, shared learning, mutual understanding and collective influence.
• Coordinate, advocate for and help broaden access to faith education activity, working alongside the Interfaith Network, communities, schools, providers and system partners.
• Develop and maintain a rich understanding of the role faith plays in how Wigan Borough lives well, building on existing mapping work and using insight, stories and relationships to show what is happening across places and communities.
• Confidently highlight the role of faith within borough-wide Belonging work, ensuring faith voices, spaces and contributions are recognised within strategic conversations and practical local action.
• Support community wealth building approaches with providers, networks and system partners, connecting faith and community organisations into broader economic, social value, funding and sustainability opportunities.
• Work collaboratively across WBCF’s infrastructure work, including development coaching, community power, funding and sustainability, volunteering, learning, insight, collaboration and influence.

This is not a siloed project role. It is a developmental infrastructure role that will need to grow, adapt and respond as relationships, learning and opportunities emerge.

The postholder will need to be independent, collaborative and reflective. They will be comfortable working without all the answers, able to make good judgements, and confident asking: what are we hearing, who needs to be involved, what can we safely do next, and how does this strengthen the sector?

Because places of faith are widely dispersed across the borough, the role requires the ability to travel independently, including by car, and to work flexibly at times that suit communities, faith settings and local partners.

The Development Worker will help faith and community organisations to lead, learn, connect, influence and deliver community-led work across Wigan Borough. The role will bring together place-based development, faith engagement, interfaith collaboration, community wealth building, learning and strategic influence.

The postholder will work alongside communities rather than doing things to them or for them. They will support faith spaces to understand their strengths, respond to local need, connect into borough-wide priorities and build more sustainable, inclusive and influential community activity.

The role…