Head of Community Services

In March 2024 we published our ambitious five year strategy which set out our plans to make East London a place where people age well, and where older people live happy, healthy and fulfilled lives. We are now looking for someone with expertise and experience in older peoples services to join our team to lead our Community Service development and delivery and help us deliver our strategic goals. Delivered across the three richly diverse London boroughs of Hackney, Tower Hamlets and Newham our Community Services currently include:

• Exercise classes to help maintain and develop fitness, strength and mobility to prevent falls and promote wellbeing (e.g through the provision of chair-based yoga and walking groups) in our centres and at outreach settings.
• Social activities giving older people the opportunity to meet and connect in our centres and in outreach settings.
• Lunch clubs providing healthy, warm and affordable meals as well as social connection.
• Digital inclusion support so that people can connect with geographically dispersed family and friends.
• Online social activities for people who are housebound to meet, connect and be stimulated.
• Support services for carers which ensure they are accessing their rights and entitlements and supporting activities and groups which alleviate the pressure of their caring role., You will be responsible for the development and delivery of our Community Services; ensuring they deliver against our strategic ambitions. Working with our Head of Home and Hospital and Head of Information and Advice you will also ensure effective integration between service areas, and that our people are consistently led and managed.
Background to the role The post has been vacant since October, since then weve undertaken a review of our community team and our current community delivery its important we get these things right if we are to deliver ourambitious strategy. By the time you begin in role there will be a clear plan for development which you will lead on delivering.This is a challenging and rewarding role; youll have expertise in the needs of older people as well as experience of change management and of leading operations.You will be resilient and will have valueswhich align with ours: Kind, Accountable, Collaborative, Flexible and Inclusive.Youll be an activemember of the senior leadership team, collaborating with colleagues on organisational development, and culture. You'll be a confident networker, initiating and developing external relationships and networks which will support and enhance our community services offer.There will be a lot of opportunity to make your mark, deliver change and support a very willing and enthusiastic team to develop together.

Age UK East London (AUKEL) is a local independent charity, which is part of the national Age UK network. We work across Tower Hamlets, Hackney, Waltham Forest and Newham to deliver serviceswhich support older people to live healthier, happier and more fulfilled lives.Our workEach year we support around 20,000 older East Londoners by providing flexible practical and emotional support in homes, hospitals and in the community. Our boroughs have the countryshighest pensioner poverty in the country, further exacerbated by the current cost of living crisis.