Senior Public Health Strategist

Grade PO8.  £53,946 - £57,102

Senior Public Health Strategist – Substance Misuse

The role

Waltham Forest Council is looking to appoint a Senior Public Health Strategist to join its Public Health team. This role is an important position within the team, with lead responsibility for substance misuse, reporting to a Consultant in Public Health.

At present, the role is based at the Council offices in Walthamstow approximately once a week (and additionally where required by business needs), with remote working available the remainder of the time.  

The role has a substantial partnership working remit, leading on bringing together partners and driving actions to improve substance misuse outcomes, including work of the Alcohol and Drugs Steering Group and Combating Drugs Partnership. The role will personally build and develop excellent working relationships with local substance misuse services and wider partners, building on existing good partnership working.

The role has a substantial commissioning and performance management element, and, working with the Consultant in Public Health, will lead on commissioning relating to substance misuse (working with others e.g. procurement), leading on ensuring high performance and continual improvement of commissioned substance misuse services.

This position will also have a senior role in the delivery of externally funded substance misuse programmes (supplemental grant and rough sleeper substance misuse programmes), including leading delivery of projects or programmes relating to this work. They will be proactive in working closely with the Programme Delivery Manager for these programmes, supporting them by providing strategic input, expertise on local need relating to substance misuse and evidence based recommendations for action to inform the programme.

This role would ideally suit a candidate with experience of work at a senior level in health improvement, including work relating to substance misuse, with strong public health technical skills, who is proactive and who has excellent organisational and project/programme management skills.

The successful candidate would also be expected to take on additional responsibilities as part of their Senior Management role, including cross-cutting work which will support the functioning of the wider Public Health team. The post is likely to manage one or more members of the Public Health team.

The successful candidate will bring energy, drive and innovation to make a difference, working through the challenges to improve outcomes for people in Waltham Forest. We invite applications from individuals who are skilled at managing relationships and negotiating across a wide range of organisations, who understand the challenges faced by local authorities and the NHS, and who will provide strong leadership in contributing to the work of our dynamic public health team.

If you would like to discuss this role informally please contact the Consultant in Public Health, Clare Bailey, clare.bailey@walthamforest.gov.uk to arrange a conversation.

Your application should set out how you meet the job role profile.

 Waltham Forest

Waltham Forest is a vibrant, diverse borough, home to approximately 260,000 residents in East London, easily accessible from central London by train and underground. Working flexibly, including an office base at Willow House on Forest Road, Walthamstow, the Public Health team has well developed relationships across the Council and with partners. Led by the Director of Public Health for Waltham Forest, the team is based in the People Directorate.

The post holder will join the team at an exciting time in the development of the public health function in London Borough of Waltham Forest, with significant challenges including supporting the recovery from COVID-19, tackling the cost of living crisis and playing a key role in reducing health inequalities, which is a priority for the council as a whole.  We have recently partnered with Professor Sir Michael Marmot and the Institute of Health Equity to conduct research and develop action plans to reduce health inequalities in our borough. The post holder will play a key role in ensuring this work delivers meaningful change for our residents.

We are a dynamic team that has excellent working relationships across the Council, the Integrated Care System and wider partners including in the voluntary and community sector. The leaders of the Borough are firmly committed to public health and reducing health inequalities and the principles of early intervention and prevention, making this an excellent place to work in collaboration to achieve genuine improvements for residents.

We are a team committed to providing a stimulating environment within which to work, running monthly reflective practice sessions, journal clubs and providing opportunities for personal development through training, education, shadowing and on-the-job learning. This is highlighted by our success in supporting a number of previous team members in successful applications to the Public Health Training scheme

Equal Opportunities

Waltham Forest is a diverse borough where diversity is valued and is integral to both, service delivery and employment of its staff. The Council is proud of its rich mix of communities and as the largest employer in the area, it works hard to respond to the changing needs of its population. We use our statutory duties on race, gender and disability equality and best practice in respect of age, faith and sexual orientation to ensure equality of opportunity in the workplace. The Council is committed to meeting its 4 equality objectives: - Promoting equality of opportunity - Opposing all forms of discrimination, intolerance and disadvantage - Ensuring our workforce reflects the diverse communities of Waltham Forest at all levels. - Providing fair, appropriate, accessible and excellent Services to all. Respecting Diversity is a core Council value. To support the above and reduce the risk of bias in its recruitment activities, the council is operating an anonymous shortlisting process, which hides personal information that can identify individuals until their application has been considered for shortlisting. The council also operates a scheme whereby, for jobs graded up to and including scale SO2, internal candidates are considered first. This includes those candidates who self-identify as having a disability for the purposes of the Disability Confident scheme. For more information, please refer to our recruitment and selection policy