Support Officers for Historic Places of Worship
Support Officers can help you understand, manage and maintain your historic places of worship. They will help you build the skills necessary to manage and make best use of your building and understand the importance of regular maintenance.
By making links with external organisations they will help you to identify available grants for essential maintenance and repairs.
Support Officers can be employed by dioceses, faith groups, local authorities, voluntary bodies or charitable trusts but each post is tailored to meet local needs, working with a number of buildings. Historic England provides 50% of the costs of the post for three years.
Between 2016 and 2023, including the period covering the COVID-19 Pandemic, Support Officers have:
- visited 3383 congregations and advised a further 5355 by telephone and email
- helped 67,886 individuals to learn confidence-building skills through study days, both in person and online
- aided congregations to gain over £30.6m in grants to deal with urgent repairs
Support Officers will proactively engage with people and help create new working relationships. They will not insist upon particular solutions but work closely with a congregation to find the right solution for them and their building.
Employing a Support Officer
If you are interested in exploring the idea of employing a Support Officer to help with the historic places of worship we recommend that you look at our sample job description and speak to the your Historic England Local Office.
