Strategic Lead for Faith & Social Prescribing

Role Details & Staff Benefits

Salary: £50,000 per annum

Duration: Fixed-term until 31st March 2027

Hours: Full Time

Location: Hybrid – NASP have an office space at London's Southbank Centre which can be used by staff at any time. The role will be expected to work up to 2 days per week in the office with the remainder at home. There may also be additional occasional travel required for staff days and other events.

NASP offer a range of core benefits for staff on payroll, including:  

• 30 days paid annual leave per annum, plus Bank Holidays  


• An additional day of paid leave per year on your birthday 


• Opportunities for Volunteering & CPD days each year 


• Opportunity to request flexible working arrangements, including compressed hours 


• Contribution to annual eye test, eyeglass purchase, and flu vaccination 

Purpose of This Role:

This is a new, pivotal strategic role to shape future policy and practice in how faith communities support social prescribing for the benefit of local communities. Building on the emerging body of research around the connection between faith and health, this role will take the lead at a national level influencing, shaping and convening partners to unlock and unleash the significant resources of faith groups in contributing towards holistic healthcare delivered within the community.  

The purpose of this role is to lead and co-ordinate NASP’s national work on social prescribing with partners across the faith sector and enable a better understanding of how to work effectively with faith communities through social prescribing, and the role that faith and belief plays in supporting good health and wellbeing. The role will work to improve accessibility of community support through social prescribing. The role would have a particular emphasis on access and health inequalities due to faith groups’ reach into deprived communities and ethnic minority communities.

The role sits in the National Leads team and will work alongside colleagues leading on the key areas of the natural environment, physical activity, historic environment, arts and culture, children and young people and older people.

Person Specification:

Role Overview:

• Act as the faith lead within NASP, being the point of contact and key advocate for faith communities’ involvement in social prescribing.


• Represent and develop faith groups’ engagement in NASP’s existing activities, programmes and events in a similar capacity to the other area leads.


• Have a specific focus on connecting social prescribing and the health inequality agenda through faith communities.

Experience & Knowledge:

• Excellent knowledge of the VCFSE (Voluntary, Community, Faith and Social Enterprise) sector, and ideally the health sector or social prescribing


• Experience of working at a senior level in the faith sector. Experience of working within the health sector as well would be highly desirable.


• Understanding/experience of health policy and working with local communities/faith communities


• Excellent partnership building and interpersonal skills with experience of building trusting long-term relationships with partners and experience of inspiring, convening and supporting organisations to work in partnership. 


• Excellent communication skills, written and verbal, both internally with peers and senior management, and externally with partners and stakeholders.


• Understands the pressures that faith organisations, health and care agencies, VCFSE organisations and community groups face and where resources have been stretched.      


• Great planner and project manager, able to produce project plans and budgets and co-produce delivery plans with partners, identifying risks and managing them together.   


• Ability to write funding applications and develop new donor relationships to secure new funds.

Skills & Attributes:

• Affinity with NASP’s Values as defined in the NASP Strategic Plan


• A self-starter and a proactive, energetic leader with a collaborative mindset.


• Strategic thinker with the ability to be proactive and spot new opportunities. 


• Ability to work under pressure, prioritise work and be flexible in delivery.

Responsibilities:

• Lead and co-ordinate NASP’s national work on social prescribing with partners across the faith sector.


• Build understanding and awareness within NASP and across other sectors of what is required to support the effective provision of services, activities and information in the faith sector to promote health and wellbeing through social prescribing.


• Liaise with and support new and existing initiatives to build an evidence base for faith-based social prescribing.


• Build a community of practice of health-engaged faith leaders to help consult on the workstream and to act as ambassadors for faith-based social prescribing. 


• Ensure engagement of faith communities themselves in developing social prescribing strategy and policy, working with relevant partners.


• Provide high quality advice and insight on faith activity and services in support of NASP’s strategy development, communications and external briefings and meetings and to enable NASP’s healthcare integration team to support the strategic development of faith SP at Integrated Care System level and secure place-based investment.


• Map current tools, resources, guides and evidence and publish a ‘one stop shop’ online to enable better commissioning and delivery.


• Build consensus on the key policies required for the scale and spread of social prescribing for faith communities across stakeholders; a joint vision of ‘good faith-based SP’.


• Identify and shape partnership opportunities to secure additional funding and resources to help build capacity to enable future social prescribing activity to better support people’s health and wellbeing outcomes.


• Enable awareness raising, shared learning, training and best practice within the faith sector and with other key social prescribing sectors.


• Budget Management - including day to day management, raising and processing payments and reporting.

To apply for this role, please complete all sections of the application form (available on the Careers page of the NASP website) and send to recruitment@nasp.info by 9am on Monday the 16th of June.

NASP have the right to bring the application deadline forward as they deem fit.

Please do not send your CV. We want to assess everyone in the same way, so we will assess your application solely on the information given in this application form.