Public Health Strategist

Job title: Public Health Strategist

Directorate: Families and Homes

Hours of work: Full time - 36 hours per week

Grade: PO6

Waltham Forest Council is looking to appoint a Public Health Strategist to join its Public Health team. The portfolio includes responsibility for the wider determinants of health including working with local planners, housing, air quality and transport colleagues.

 Waltham Forest

 Waltham Forest is a vibrant, diverse home to approximately 275,000 residents in East London, easily accessible from central London by train and underground, and is the current London Borough of Culture for 2019. Based in the Town Hall at Forest Road, 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 Families and Homes 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, contributing towards achieving the priorities set out the 2016 Health and Wellbeing Strategy. We are a dynamic team that is well embedded within the Families and Homes directorate of the local authority, with excellent working relationships across the Council, the local CCG and wider partners. The leaders of the borough are firmly committed to public health 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 4 previous team members in successful applications to the Public Health Training scheme in the last 3 years.

The role

 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. This role would ideally suit a candidate with experience of working on the wider determinants of health, and with strong networking and influencing/negotiating skills.

 The post holder will work in co-operation with other colleagues within Public Health, council directorates, the local Clinical Commissioning Group and NHS and voluntary sector and will need to establish and maintain a wide range of working relationships. The post holder will need to develop a good understanding of the context of services in the borough which impact on health and health inequalities.

 The position is a universal public health strategist role, and ideally the post holder will be able to work across the broad spectrum of the public health team’s remit but applications from individuals with a strong background and training in planning, housing etc. will also be considered provided sufficient knowledge and experience of public health can be demonstrated. The portfolio to be covered by the candidate will require strong networking and influencing/negotiating skills and will cover the following areas of work:

• Air quality
• Transport and health
• Spatial planning and health
• Housing and health
• Workplace health
• Healthy High Streets work including licensing and healthier catering
• School superzones programme

 We invite applications from individuals who are skilled at managing relationships 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 Russell.carter@walthamforest.gov.uk. Your application should set out how you meet the job role profile.