Volunteering and Community Engagement Officer


Company:	Government Recruitment Service
Salary:	£33,854 to £33,854 a year
Hours:	Full-time
Location:	GL16 8BA
Job type:	Permanent
Posting date:	21 Sept 2026
Closing date:	18 Oct 2026

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Summary

The Volunteering and Community Engagement Officer’s role balances these two pivotal and complementary areas of work.

Community engagement is our work across all forest beats to ensure our woods are welcoming and safe for local communities to use and enjoy, reaching out to community groups to facilitate visits and increase understanding and support for our work.

The volunteering part of the role provides specialist support to those offering volunteering opportunities at both our forest beats and our main recreation sites, adding value and ensuring best practice as we increase the number and quality of volunteering opportunities in line with Growing the Future to 2031.

This post sits within the Recreation and Engagement team which consists of four recreation hub teams, Haldon Forest, Cardinham, Forest of Dean, Wyre & the Marches, and specialist functions such as community engagement, learning, volunteering, marketing and communications.

The role can be based anywhere within the district, with frequent travel around the district a necessary part of its success.

Key responsibilities & accountabilities

Volunteering – approximately 75%

Create and implement the West district Volunteer Plan, identifying areas in need of support at both our main recreation hubs and our wider forest and opportunities to maintain and grow volunteer activity and diversify participation
Support and promote volunteering opportunities, ensuring best practice is followed and a strong health and safety culture is emphasised.
Provide support for staff managing volunteers throughout the district, including dealing with challenging situations as they arise. Tasks include reviewing volunteer agreements, ensuring volunteers are registered on the volunteer database, carrying out FISA checks on practical work parties, and providing advice on welfare provision, as well as monitoring and auditing volunteer management
Carry out regular site visits to review and support volunteer good practice; joining in with volunteer activities to get a sense of the work being done and build solid relationships with staff and volunteers alike
Coordinate volunteering activity including corporate volunteering and partnership working. Organise and run corporate volunteer days in conjunction with the Recreation Projects Manager in line with the National guidance on corporate groups
Coordinate the shadow volunteer programme in West
Keep clear, concise and accurate record keeping using the Volunteer Management CRM system, ensuring all staff who manage volunteers understand the database and input details regularly and accurately
Recruit and induct new volunteers; book, facilitate and on occasion deliver training sessions
Keep up to date with volunteering internally by attending Volunteer Network Meetings, Teams catch up calls and linking in on a 1:1 basis with the team. Run two West-district in-person volunteering meetings a year – in winter and summer – to pass on knowledge and troubleshoot.
Liaise with national colleagues and champion volunteering, telling the story of our volunteers to volunteers, wider staff teams and externally.
Actively seek feedback from volunteers to help develop our ideas

Community Engagement – approximately 20%

Lead our community rangers in their work across the district, with regular monthly team catch ups online, and hosting two face-to-face meetings a year in autumn and spring to brainstorm issues and showcase best practice
Travel around the district to support development of work – this could include walking to remote areas to troubleshoot particular issues with teams, helping design community questionnaires, or representing Forestry England at public events
Lead on the creation of community plans, including the district schedule and budget for plans, public engagement events, templates where appropriate, and production of the final plans
Provide advice and guidance on day-to-day issues around forest ops engagement and day-to-day community work issues
Evolve how we engage around forest plans, ensuring we are reaching out to the right audiences and gathering their views as part of the process
Lead and proactively support volunteers and members of staff to deliver community engagement programmes and events
Support the development of key relationships with third-party stakeholders

General – 5%

Manage the community engagement annual budget, reporting to the Operations Manager for Marketing and Communications on a monthly basis
Demonstrate and proactively support safe working practices, review risk assessments, and share messaging, training, updates and lone working support for the community team
Encourage rangers to share good news stories nationally and locally, internally and externally

This role’s grade usually contains line management duties. At present there is no line management attached to this role, but this might be added in the future.

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