Advocacy officer

We’re a social action charity that’s best at reinventing itself in response to people’s needs.

We help services, funders and systems find new ways to create deep social change. We’re willing to be bold, remove the box and bring edge-based solutions into the middle.

Our three strands of action in Coventry, Warwickshire and nationally are strengthening people, sparking community action and shifting power. 

In November 2020, we hosted a summit to help harness community spirit for the future with 98 people from all walks of life and a public sector summit for 68 professionals to help cement new ways of working accelerated by the pandemic into everyday practice.

We were keeping over 500 isolated people strong and well as the crisis struck. That number more than doubled to 1,232 during 2020.

Our experience

We celebrated our 25-year anniversary in 2019 after starting life in 1994 as a drop-in in Spon End, Coventry for people with learning disabilities.

We learned who they were, what their dreams were and what they could offer and realised that way of working could help many others too. The answer to their problems lay in community, not specialised services.

Now we work with all kinds of people experiencing poverty, disadvantage and isolation.

Working for us

We offer a friendly workplace with a strong culture of helping people uncover their potiential. We’re committed to diversity and inclusion in our team and across our work, treating every person we meet as an individual with unique passions and skills.

In addition to our ethos, our employee benefits include:

• Flexible working
• Employee Assistance Programme
• 25 days annual leave plus bank holidays (for full-time roles, pro rata for part-time)
• Stakeholder pension scheme plus eight per cent employer contribution.

Meet the Grapevine team

Here’s what some members of our team have to say about working for Grapevine. We look forward to getting to know you too!

“I came to Grapevine as a service user, I grew to believe in their work and saw how much it helped our family to grow and change our thinking.” (Mel Smith, Grapevine Deputy CEO)

“Our jobs are so varied. Seeing people achieve things that either they thought they wouldn’t be able to or were told by society they couldn’t. I can’t help but miss people when they move on to great things but I know it’s because they feel confident to do it without our support and that’s great.” (Molly Gillespie)

“Grapevine has helped both my family and myself to find a new outlook for our lives. I have also witnessed several other transformational journeys as Grapevine staff have walked side by side with someone.” (Melissa Smith,  community organiser)

“I’m proud of the difference Grapevine Coventry and Warwickshire is trying to make in a UK that just keeps getting tougher for vulnerable people.” (Andrea Mbarushimana,  from Help and Connect)