Position Type: Seasonal, Contract
Compensation: $16/hour, up to 40 hours per week
Start Date: August 8, 2024
Training Date: August 2 or 6, 2024, based on candidates’ availability
Anticipated End Date: August 28, 2024
Reports to: Kieran Quirke (Events & Security Coordinator) and Austin Johnson (Community Care Coordinator).

Overview
Community Care is Fringe Theatre’s service-based program that uses harm reduction approaches to community crisis response and community empowerment. This team supports unhoused and/or vulnerable community members who may access various community supports in the immediate vicinity of the Fringe Theatre Arts Barns and Fringe Festival grounds who are often displaced from their regular use of public spaces by Festival activity. This is a situation that has arisen not by design but as a matter of circumstance.

Our Community Care team continues to evolve and respond to emerging community needs thanks to vital supports from partnering organizations who lead this important work like Boyle Street Community Services, Bissell Centre, The Mustard Seed, Youth Empowerment and Support Services, Old Strathcona Youth Society, 4B Harm Reduction Society, and more. We could not do this work without their expertise, experience, and resources. We are grateful for the very many ways these organizations serve community, and uplift organizations like Fringe Theatre in this work.

We are seeking passionate and skilled Staff to join our Festival team.

Reporting to the Community Care Coordinator, the Community Care Team is:

• Comfortable with proximity to drug and substance use;
• Comfortable with handling direct conflict and direct communication;
• Has a basic understanding of and respect for Indigenous cultural practices and protocol or a willingness to learn;
• Reliable, punctual, and willing to commit to responsibilities; and
• An excellent communicator.

Is it you we’re looking for?
You are outgoing and energetic with a keen understanding of (or a committed interest in learning about) practicing harm reduction in the community. You’re a people person who wants to build leadership skills. You champion radical hospitality and are committed to creating a supportive Festival experience where everyone is welcome. You communicate openly and clearly and can approach potentially heightened situations with a calm and caring demeanor. You are a creative problem solver who’s driven by providing excellent experiences. You bring a collaborative and positive energy to everything you do, but you take the initiative and can work independently. A passion for Fringe, live theatre, and the local arts scene helps, too!

Job Description:

This position will:

• Work closely with Fringe Security and First Aid through a harm reduction approach to identify and respond to the needs of vulnerable and/or unhoused community members on the Fringe Festival Site for up to one week before, during, and immediately after the Festival;
• Work closely with Fringe Security through a harm reduction approach to de-escalate difficult situations with patrons on site;
• Respond to the needs of vulnerable and/or unhoused community members including but not limited to the distribution of harm reduction supplies, de-escalation of charged situations, liaise with Fringe Security to mitigate harm, distribute information for local human services available in the neighborhood;
• Respond to drug poisonings that may happen on Festival site for up to one week before and during Festival, including but not limited to: administration of Naloxone, contacting Fringe Volunteer First Aid Team and completing all relevant reporting of incidents.
• Work with Community Care Volunteers to share Festival’s harm reduction approach with the broader Festival community of patrons and guests;
• Organize and distribute Community Care supplies as needed;
• Assist with regular opening and closing site duties; and
• Collaborate with and support other Festival activities and departments as required.

Qualifications & Skills

Applicants must be:

• 18 years or older;
• Legally entitled to work according to the relevant provincial/territorial legislation and regulations;
• Available to attend mandatory Community Care training;
• Preference will be given to applications with valid First Aid certification; and
• Experience working with vulnerable communities is an asset but is not required.

Work Schedule:

• Schedule will be based on availability with some evening and weekend work required.

To apply:
Please complete the form below, or email your cover letter and resume to work@fringetheatre.ca by 11:59 PM on July 24, 2024, with “Community Care Team” in the subject line. We thank everyone who applies, but only those selected for an interview will be contacted.

Why Fringe?
At Fringe Theatre, we foster Artists. We nurture audiences. We take chances. Fringe cultivates safer spaces for brave ideas and big artistic risk.

Since its very beginning, Fringe Theatre has been the meeting place where experience, perspective, diversity, and passion are explored, uplifted, and celebrated. Representation onstage, backstage, in the Front of House and Box Office, in our administrative spaces, and in our mentorship and training programs matters. The future of theatre in Treaty 6 is equitable, diverse, inclusive, and accessible. We believe representation within our organization will lead to greater equity, diversity, inclusivity, and accessibility in our community.

We are a collaborative, playful, creative, flexible, hard-working team where big ideas and out-of-the-box approaches are encouraged. We know you have a big, beautiful, busy life outside of Fringe and we will do everything in our power to honour your humanness beyond the kickass work you do with us.

Our base of operations is the Fringe Theatre Arts Barns in Edmonton, AB (10330 84 Avenue). Our hours of business are typically 9am – 5pm Monday – Friday, though as a busy cultural space supporting more than 500 events year-round and as the producers of the largest, longest running Fringe Theatre Festival in North America, there is an expectation that staff are reasonably available evenings and weekends based on season and Festival event activity.

Employees are expected to uphold and champion Fringe’s Safer Spaces and Anti-Racism programs and abide by our Code of Conduct.