Senior Nutrition Advisor

There has never been a more exciting time to join the Children's Nutrition Team, part of our community children's services. As part of wider transformation work, we are continuing to develop our Family Weight Management programme, as well as delivering our Cook4Life programme, our recently refreshed Cook4Life Train the Trainer and our Awards for settings such as schools, early years settings and children's homes. You will have the opportunity to lead areas of this whilst working closely with staff from other disciplines., To work as part of a community based Children's Nutrition Team promoting good nutrition and healthy living within the local community, working especially with children and their families in partnership with school nurses, health visitors, schools, the Sports Trust, children's centres, the private, voluntary and independent childcare sector, youth groups and children's homes, and other community venues e.g. leisure centres, with the overall aim of preventing and reducing childhood obesity and promoting healthy weight. The role includes working on Healthy Lifestyle Programmes for children, young people of all ages and their families. Senior Nutrition Advisors provide guidance to the Nutrition Advisors in the team., Facilitate the promotion of good children's nutrition by working with children, young people, families and personnel who work with children in Tameside.
· Engage with children, young people and families about all aspects of the service, in order to identify unmet need and improve service delivery.
· Work within agreed pathways to develop, organise and facilitate community healthy lifestyle programmes for children, young people and their families.
· Work with other agencies to provide support for families with children who need help to manage their weight.
· Proactively explore opportunities within neighbourhoods and wider communities to work in new ways to address the public health healthy weight agenda; this includes attending multi-agency forums and other networking.
· Develop, organise and facilitate accredited/ non accredited Food and Nutrition training for staff / volunteers working with families and children in a range of settings; this may include individual portfolio assessment.
· Engage and build relationships with schools, private, voluntary and independent childcare settings, children's centres, youth groups and children's homes in order to support and promote healthy eating with children and families; this includes working on award schemes to promote healthy eating.
· Identify, review and prepare evidence-based session plans / resources / leaflets to support activities.
· Provide information about the team's programmes and activities in a wide range of user-friendly formats to promote engagement and referral.
· Support children's settings and organisations to meet national guidelines on healthy eating, and to develop healthy food policies and resources.
· Contribute to policy and service development in response to identified need and public health priorities, within the team, the children, young people and families pathway, and wider multi-agency services.
· Communicate in a manner that shows consideration and respect to all backgrounds including ethnicity, age, gender, disability and lifestyle.
· Promote health by encouraging and facilitating the development of healthier eating habits using the community development approach.
· Work with the other Senior Nutrition Advisors in the team to plan and co-ordinate the activities of the Children's Nutrition Team, and to ensure the Service Specification is met, with the support of the Lead Paediatric Dietitian.
· Take responsibility within the Children's Nutrition Team to lead on the development and delivery of specific service areas.
· Take responsibility for engaging with 0-19 Healthy Child Programme teams in specific neighbourhoods / localities, in order to support these teams with appropriate services from the Children's Nutrition Team.
· Use good time management and organisational skills.
· Manage and prioritise own workload and be flexible around service needs.
· Work within Trust, service and national protocols and policies.
· Use good computer keyboard skills.
· Undertake weight and height measurements on children, and calculate and plot measurements including Body Mass Index (BMI) on growth chart.
· Take responsibility for the safe use and security of equipment such as weighing scales, educational resources and IT equipment.
· Maintain records of both patient identifiable and non-patient identifiable interventions and activities, both electronically and on paper, as required and in line with Trust policy.
· Evaluate service performance within areas of specific responsibility, including producing both qualitative and quantitative evidence for service reports.
· Produce publicity and press releases to promote activities to the local population.
· Assist in the supervision and guidance of the day-to-day workload of the Nutrition Advisors within the team, to ensure that service objectives are met.
· Contribute to the recruitment, induction and mentoring of Nutrition Advisors, supporting continual professional development, team and individual target setting and progress reviews.
· Continually review and evaluate work, as an individual and team member, to ensure aims and objectives are met.
· Support new team members, students etc, in their learning and development.
· Use excellent verbal and written communication skills with a wide range of people including parents, children and young people, staff and volunteers from partner and community organisations, in individual and group settings.
· Use knowledge and understanding of the impact of child poverty, cultural, emotional and psychological factors, and social disadvantage, on lifestyles and ability to access services, to identify and support delivery of services to the above priority groups.
· Be familiar with the local and national public health agenda, particularly in relation to obesity / healthy weight, oral health and exercise, the food and health needs and concerns of local people in Tameside.
· Use communication and motivational skills with individuals and individual families to encourage and support attendance at group based healthy lifestyle / behaviour change programmes.
· Plan, facilitate and evaluate groups and courses on topics relating to healthy lifestyles and prevention and management of childhood obesity.
· Support participants to identify health improvement goals.
· Encourage and motivate participants to sustain healthy lifestyle changes.
· Recognise when referrals or interventions being delivered as part of healthy weight pathways are not meeting the needs of a child or family, and when to seek advice from referrers, Health Visitors, School Nurses, the Team Leader or Paediatric Dietitian.
· Plan, deliver and evaluate talks to promote the service, according to agreed standards.
· Act as a source of unbiased, up to date and evidence-based information on nutrition and healthy weight to professionals, the public and media
· Required use of a car to travel between community venues around Tameside.
· Able to work flexibly including evenings and weekends to meet the needs of children, young people and their families.
· Transport scales, display boards, resources, information leaflets, food and equipment for health promotional activities.
· This post can involve exposure to a range of people some of whom may share sensitive personal information and may express challenging behaviour.
New colleagues can look forward to a warm welcome here at Tameside & Glossop Integrated Care NHS Foundation Trust.

The Trust is committed to making a difference to the environment. Our "Save Planet Tameside & Glossop" strategy means that we work towards protecting our natural environment and "green" workplace practices at all times.

Tameside and Glossop Integrated Care NHS Foundation Trust serves a community of 250,000 people across Tameside & Glossop. We provide a range of services both within the hospital and across our community for both adults and children. Our vision is to improve health outcomes for our population and influence wider determinants of health through collaboration with our health & care partners.
We have a clear set of values & behaviours which we expect all of our staff to demonstrate:
+ Safety
+ Care
+ Respect
+ Communication
+ Learning
We believe that the best organisations are those that reflect the communities they serve. We are therefore seeking to improve the diversity of our workforce to make it truly representative of our local population.
We actively encourage applications irrespective of race, age, disability, sex, gender reassignment, gender identity or expression, sexual orientation, religion or belief, marriage & civil partnership, or pregnancy or maternity. Recognising those communities that are underrepresented within our workforce, we would particularly welcome applications from Black, Asian & minority ethnic candidates, LGBTQ+ people & Disabled people.
Benefits include; flexible working, 27-33 days annual leave plus bank holidays, sick pay, NHS Pension Scheme, free eye tests and health checks, gym discount, free bicycle loan scheme, salary sacrifice car scheme, support with stress, bereavement, relationships, finance, and much more., For our agenda for change staff, we offer a competitive benefits package with regular pay awards, annual leave of 27 days increasing to 33 days after 10 years and access to a competitive Pension Scheme to which both you and the Trust contribute. These terms and conditions are not applicable for Non-Executive positions.