Find your place in the field of good food

Our goal is to connect good people with good food. We advertise sustainable food jobs and training opportunities to help jobseekers and employers find each other.

Roots to Work is a project of Sustain: the alliance for better food and farming.

Project Support Officer - Horticulture

Osborne Partnership
Dagenham, Essex

Posted: 9 Jul 2025

Deadline: 18 Jul 2025

Compensation: From £13.23 per hour to £13.85 per hour dependent on qualifications

Living Wage employer Disability Confident scheme

Paid Full-time Permanent

Job description

To primarily work in the Osborne Partnership Centre's Gardens and Allotments and Horticulture training room to provide support (and train and assess as appropriate) individuals and groups of adults with learning disabilties and/or autism, and helping those individuals to learn new personal and project-based skills, and to prepare them for possible employment. An applicant's knowledge and experience in working in a horticultural or agricultural setting is desired. We encourage and support our partners to gain skills in maintaing the centre's garden and lawn areas, the allotment areas (where they are supported in growing their own fruit and vegetables), and the protected wildlife areas. 

Applicants with Level(s) 2/3 Social Care qualifications (particularly adults with learning disabilites) are escpecially welcome, however we will consider applicants with alternatives, subject to them expressively agreeing to upskill in the role, and provided they show evidence of a caring mentality and empathy with our service user group. 

Main Duties: 

1. To ensure that the centre's garden and allotment areas are fully operational every weekday, and work closely with the Project Manager on schemes of work preparation, health and safety, hygiene and cleanliness for service users and staff.
2. To laise with the Project Manager to ensure that there is coordination and support in respect of the Horticulture service and its associated tasks. 
3. To offfer support and assistance to the service users in employment preparation (primarily via Horticulture actvities) on training courses and/or when they are engaged in other daytime activities designed to increase their independence and well-being.
4. To assist in the planning, preparation, and delivery of training activities for service users/learners on both accredited and unaccredited training courses and projects as appropriate.
5. To assist in the planning of daily work activities and training schedules for the service users/learners in advance, ensuring adequate stocks and materials required for daily tasks are ordered and available before they are depleted.
6. To assist the service users/learners in developing and maintaining appropiate skills to futher their preparation for employment and to increase their independence and well-being (basic skills such as safe tools and equipment use, health and safety training, good time keeping, appropriate dress codes, hygiene, etc.)
7. To assist in ensuring that any tools and equipment used on the projects are operating correctly and safely.
8. To assist service users/learners in ensuring that all work tasks and units of training undertaken are completed to the required quality and standard.
9. To deal with and resolve day-to-day issues in relation to specific service users/learners and refer more complex ongoing problems to the Project Manager or Senior Management Team. 
10. To ensure that all work carried out is in accordance witht he organisation's Health and Safety Policy.
11. To take responsibility for Health and Safety in the work/training units and in other community-based activities as appropriate. 
12. To accompany and support service users/learners engaged in projects and activities in community-based settings including horticulture related activities. 
13. To support partners engaged in centre-based projects, particularly horticulture but also on occasion other projects including arts &crafts, cafe/catering, recycling, shop/retail, I.T, performing arts, cookery, etc, as and when required and to support overall centre staff capacity.
14. To carry out the range of administrative duites associated with the post (e.g registering of service users/learners, compiling behavioural/problem evidence by means of written and electronic reports, incident reports, accidents reports etc).
15. To support the the Project Manager /Senior Management Team in the regular monitoring and evaluation of service users/learners by assisting with the completion of appropriate internal monitoring forms.
16. To attend and contribute to regular staff meetings regarding day-to-day matters in relation to the conduct/behaviour of service users/learners and other organisational matters
17. To undergo training necessary in relation to the requirements of the post.
18. To undertake any other reasonable duties consistent with the overall purpose of the post within the competence of the post holder.

N.B. As the Osborne Partnership works with and supports vulnerable adults, all posts require post holders to be in possession of a current DBS clearance (formerly Criminal Records Bureau - CRB) at enchanced level.

Application information

Please email karenj@osbornepartnership.org for an application form.

Please mention Roots to Work when applying for these jobs