Physical Activity Insight Advisor

Diabetes UK is seeking a physical activity expert who will be able to lead and gather insights from people with diabetes, focusing on the barriers faced to becoming active.

This is an exciting new role within the organisation funded for one year by Sport England. You will be part of the Care Team, working alongside diabetes specialists, Sport England's experts and the wider health charity sector.

You will conduct a detailed review of the evidence surrounding people with diabetes and inactivity, focus on barriers that prevent people with diabetes from engaging in physical activity, and you will hold frequent focus groups to uncover these barriers. The post holder will use a variety of mediums to engage with people with diabetes and collect insights in innovative and wide spread ways, whilst meeting people with diabetes you will be expected to support your audience from a physical activity perspective.

• Effectively build and maintain excellent external relationships with a range of people with diabetes and those at risk. The post holder will gain invaluable insights through mechanisms such as focus groups formulating , interviews and arranging forums to understand barriers relating to inactivity
• Build and maintain excellent internal relationships with colleagues and teams across the charity, and being the lead internal expert provide advice on physical activity throughout the organisation.
• Responsible for undertaking a review of evidence to identify previous findings on barriers for people with diabetes undertaking physical activity/those who are inactive to inform future thinking within this area.
• Responsible for gathering knowledge and insights from diabetes physical activity experts from the NHS and physical activity sector with a view to utilising this information to formulate Diabetes UK's organisational position on this matter.
• Conduct focus group sessions, with or without external input, across the UK to gather insights from people with diabetes and barriers they face to physical activity
• Working collaboratively with the Richmond Group of Charities and Sport England to shape and drive this insight project and share expert knowledge as well as influencing the approach taken based on evidence and insights gathered through this project.
• Working with internal diabetes experts to enhance our physical activity messaging and content, adapting technical information, and enabling this messaging to be tailored to meet the needs of a variety of audiences
• Use behaviour change theories to guide the rationale for information gathered
• Consider potential solutions to barriers uncovered through insight gathering and evidence review which may shape the organisations position in the future
• Search and critique evidence when required to ensure all messaging and advice is evidence based.
• Lead on the pro-active development of relationships within the physical activity sector as well as , external diabetes courses and professional bodies to define good clinical practice and promote the work of Diabetes UK.
• Commitment to Diabetes UK charitable aims and values
• Willingness to travel throughout the UK and work flexibly to meet the needs of the charity.

The best person for this job will be able to:

• Ability to build and maintain effective relationships
• Ability to persuade and influence a range of internal and external stakeholders
• Creative and forward-thinking approach to solutions
• Enthusiastic with a pro-active with a can-do attitude
• High attention to detail
• Minimum bachelor's degree in physical activity related course (Physical education/ sport psychology etc) or health related field with post grad physical activity awards

The best person for this job will have experience in:

• Delivering community based focus group work and proactively utilising the learning from these groups
• Working in a physical activity role where all abilities had to be addressed
• Ability to critique evidence and literature
• Worked with populations using behaviour change theories/practice

The best person for this job will be:

• Expertise on physical activity and behaviour change
• Have the ability to critically appraise research findings and apply to a population
• Have good understanding of qualitative data interpretation
• Excellent interpersonal skills, and ability to communicate effectively with a wide range of people.
• Excellent in presentation and writing
• The ability to build strong relationships with key stakeholders
• A good team player with the ability to work well using own initiative,
• Effective with time management and prioritisation skills with the ability to work calmly under pressure and tight deadlines
• Proficient in MS- Word, Powerpoint and Outlook