Community Engagement Specialist

**Community Engagement Specialist**:

- Full-time, permanent position / 37.5 hours per week_

**Who are we?**

Food is not the solution to food insecurity, but people need support today. Knowing this, we collect and distribute more than three million kilograms of food annually to 140 member food banks, meal programs, and shelters across the province. This equates to over $1 million worth of food each month. We also support our member agencies as they build capacity to serve their communities. While we help Nova Scotians meet a very basic need, we're raising awareness of the root causes of food insecurity - things like systemic racism, low wages, inadequate income support, and unaffordable housing. And we're advocating for sustainable, policy-based solutions that will allow everyone to live a life of dignity and leave no one relying on charitable band-aids to address human rights.

**Overview of Responsibilities**

The Innovation and Learning Lab was developed to help facilitate transformative change in response to food insecurity in our province. While still in early stages of development, the Innovation and Learning Lab team will work closely together to collect, review, and analyze research, while centering first voice and lived experience, with the intent of co-designing creative and sustainable solutions to the food insecurity crisis in our province.

This work cannot and should not be done independently. Working closely with the Project Manager, the Community Engagement Specialist will focus on the growth of the organization’s community-based network, with a focus on authentic community engagement, while bringing together a First Voice Advisory Council, where participants collaborate and co-create solutions that address the unique needs of their communities across Nova Scotia.

The Community Engagement Specialist is passionate about facilitating positive social change, and will allow kindness, empathy and humility to guide their work through meaningful and effective communication. The Community Engagement Specialist is creative and resilient by nature, and will work from the heart, while centering first voice experience and approaching new learning with objectivity and curiosity.

Reporting to the Director of the Innovation and Learning Lab, the core responsibilities of this role are to build strong relationships with diverse communities across the province; lead the design and implementation of community consultation processes and tools; and facilitate and steer conversations with diverse communities and partners in the design of new program prototypes and models. To support a healthy work/life balance, flexible work arrangements are available, within the confines of the role.

**What does the Community Engagement Specialist do?**
- Lead research and mapping of potential community partners in communities across the province, lead outreach to and engagement with community partners to explore opportunities for collaboration;
- Engage in and facilitate regular community meetings to foster relationship building, collaboration, and promote equitable access to food support
- Lead the design of community consultation plans, processes and tools to enable participants to explore and identify innovative program models and prototypes to pursue;
- Lead or support facilitation of community consultations, partner discussions and prototype workgroup meetings and engagement sessions;
- Support outreach, recruitment, selection and onboarding for the Innovation Lab’s Steering Committee members and members of the First Voice Advisory Council;
- Lead or support facilitation of the Lived Experience Advisory Council, support member capacity building via connections to networks, training and other pursuits as identified by the Advisory;
- Explore, identify and connect resources to the community to establish viable partnerships which support the overall community-building effort
- Be a key point of contact and actively engage with community thought leaders, politicians, and local partner agencies
- Cultivate relationships across the organization and with diverse communities to provide new opportunities and platforms for engagement and shared learning; provide continual education about these opportunities to internal and external partners;
- Provide ongoing input, information, and materials (as requested) that support internal and external communication efforts around advocacy and engagement;
- Participate in continuous training, workshops, seminars, and meetings that directly impact job
- related knowledge, skills and abilities
- Liaise and work with third-party consultants and partner agencies, maintaining good relationships

**What are we looking for?**
- Undergraduate degree (or equivalent) in a related field, such as social science, community services, community development, social work, humanities, or psychology
- Three to five (3-5) years of relevant work experience; an equivalent combination of education and/or ex