Graduate Communications Officer

**A bit about us**
We’re looking for talented graduates to join our two year **Graduate** scheme at Somerset County Council as a **Communications Officer**.

At Somerset County Council, we are a listening council committed to a singular vision: improving people’s lives. This vision underpins everything we do - from caring for our elderly and disabled residents, maintaining our roads, to educating and looking after our children and young people.

In Fostering, we’re passionate about making a difference and doing things differently. We’re leading on a number of key innovative projects which other Authorities are watching with interest, guaranteed to make a real difference to the lives of hundreds of children and young people.

We’re looking for a talented Graduate to join us. We’ll give you a wealth of experience and support as you take on challenging real-world projects that improve the lives of our residents, communities and businesses in the beautiful county of Somerset.

**Here's what you can expect to be doing**
Our fostering services go above and beyond to help support over 500 young people and Children Looked After in Somerset - and we need hero foster carers to help support each and every one of them to reach their full potential. Can you help us recruit them?

There are a range of different foster care services here in Somerset. These include:

- Mainstream - foster carers take care of children from birth to 16 years and sometimes older
- Step Forward - long-term fostering of children ready to leave residential care,
- Stepping Stones - supported lodgings for 16 to 21 year old care leavers learning to live independently
- Parent and child - support and care for a single or two parents and a young baby in your home
- short stays - occasional care for a child who is already living with a local foster family
- Short break care - specialist support scheme offering occasional care for a child with disabilities
- Homes and Horizons High Needs Fostering - a specialist wrap around foster care service which works closely with Homes2Inspire (part of the Shaw Trust) and NHS to help support Somerset’s most vulnerable and traumatised children and young people

This is a great time to join the Fostering communication team and make a real difference to the lives of children and young people. We are looking for a self-motivated graduate to help us change a child’s story.

With us, you’ll spend time as a **Graduate Communications Officer**, learning how to create great content (written copy, videos, social media and web content, press releases etc) and support in the running of communications and marketing campaigns across a number of different areas. We are improving the ways we engage with people and our staff and you will be at the heart of the team developing this for us.

This role will give you a broad set of relevant skills early in your career, which you can take into a wide number of opportunities in your future. You will be working as part of experienced teams who will support and develop you. Not only this, but the work you will be doing will have a direct impact on improving the lives of the individuals we are working with.

This is a hybrid role which means you will be able to work from home and from County Hall in Taunton.

**A few things about you**
If you’re someone with great communication skills, a passion for making a difference who can turn dry information into great stories using words, pictures, social media and video and want to help change the futures of Looked After Children in Somerset then this role could be for you.

We’re looking for someone creative, super organised and a great communicator to help support our foster carer recruitment communications team. You’ll be able to generate great ideas and will have the planning, organisational, and people skills to see them through to completion. You’ll be producing promotional materials, social media content (including video), updating websites, preparing monthly evaluation statistics, writing press releases and promotional copy, supporting events and helping spot new opportunities to recruit Somerset foster carers.

You’ll have a good understanding of social media, especially online audiences and how to engage them. We’re looking for plain English champions with strong communication and creative skills.

This role would suit someone interested in a career in media, communications, marketing or PR who is strongly motivated by making a difference.

You’ll be highly digitally literate, confident in using a range of technologies spanning social media platforms and using content management systems such as wordpress and newsletter software - or a desire to learn.

You will be a confident and self-assured collaborator as you work and interact with our teams within Fostering recruitment, the corporate communications team, children’s services and key stakeholders.

Your strong organisational skills mean you’ll confid