Are you interested in working with young people and young adults at risk of homeless and support them to access housing and support them to make a better transition to adulthood.
The Role:
· To work with our young people in our care and young adults leaving our care to support their housing, support needs.
· Create and facilitate tenancy ready courses, support with tenancy related issues, housing and tenancy applications, effective preventative work and intervention to avoid eviction and homelessness.
· Work in collaboration with partner agencies to support care leavers into accommodation, identify areas of support, challenge and assist with appeals where housing and tenancy rights are not being followed, and overcome barriers to accommodation and housingpathways for our young adults.
· Collate, record, maintain and understand relevant data to support the accommodation and housing pathways of our young adults.
· To mediate where difficulties with tenancies, landlords, housing, or neighbours to help find solutions that help young adults maintain their housing and successfully resolve differences.
We are currently seeking an individual who will enjoy working as a Homeless Prevention Officer, with duties including:
· Support young adults leaving our care to gain knowledge around tenancy management and their rights and responsibilities as a tenant by delivering tenancy ready courses to individual young people or in a group setting
· To maintain accurate records and oversee required data reports that allows oversight of young people preparing for independent living, their housing requirements, their housing or tenancy application status, types of tenancies and accommodation, and those at risk of housing breakdown or eviction
· Engage with housing providers and landlords to explore and seek local housing options for young adults leaving our care.
· To identify any barriers to good housing options, support, and stability for young adults leaving our care and share these with line managers along with suggestions for how to overcome these and improve our housing options, support, and ways of working together
Please refer to the Job Description attached for more information.
We will offer you in return a package that includes a competitive salary, an excellent pension scheme and generous annual leave plus bank holidays. For more information on the benefits package on offer please refer to the Candidate Information document attached.
We reserve the right to close adverts earlier than the closing date.
We are currently looking for a professional who is able to support young people and young adults at risk of homelessness and actively working with our internal and external stakeholders to prevent homelessness under the Levelling Up programme. You will have to be able to build rapid rapport with young people and young adults and find solutions according to their needs with the support of their personal adviser and line manager.
Requirements:
· Professional and/or academic level 3 qualification or equivalent or substantial experience in a relevant technical, specialised or operational field.
· The successful candidate will have extensive experience working with young people and young adults as well as solid experience with people at risk of homelessness and housing issues.
· Experience of, or the ability to demonstrate the competence to, work directly with individual young people and young adults with complex needs as well as families to identify, assess their needs and make appropriate planned responses which seek to improve outcomes related to homelessness and prevention.
· Experience working in housing department or as a housing officer working in accordance with housing legislation and statutory guidance.
· Experience working with young people and young adults who have faced difficulties, such as addiction, mental illness, trauma, abuse, disabilities, and exploitation an asset.
For the full list of essential and desirable criteria for this role then please refer to the Person Specification within the Job Description attached.
Appointment to this post will be subject to the outcome of an Enhanced Disclosure obtained through the Disclosure and Barring Service (DBS)
This authority is committed to safeguarding and promoting the welfare of children and young people and vulnerable adults and expects all staff and volunteers to share this commitment.
This post is considered by the authority to be a customer-facing position; as such it falls within scope of the Code of Practice on English language requirement for public sector workers. The council therefore has a statutory duty under Part 7 of the Immigration Act 2016 to ensure that post holders have a command of spoken English sufficient for the effective performance of the job requirements. The appropriate standards are set out in the JD/Person Specification. These will be applied during the recruitment/selection and probationary stages.
Bexley is well connected, there are good transport links to central London, the Kent countryside and the Coast! It is the best of both worlds. Our residents and workers can benefit from the new high-speed Elizabeth Line which goes from Abbey Wood, here in Bexley and all the way to Reading, Southeast England.
We are a diverse and growing borough. By 2030 our population will be over 260,000 and almost 300,000 by 2050. Almost 25% of our population is Black and Asian Multi-Ethnic. Bexley is one of London’s greenest boroughs and has recently been awarded Public Sector Campaign of the year by Sustainable City’s prestigious annual awards.
We believe that everyone in Bexley Children’s Social Care should have the opportunity to grow and develop, in every role and at every stage of their career and offer a wide variety of social work roles, both for qualified and unqualified practitioners. Bexley Children’s Social Care offers the opportunity to develop skills and knowledge in different areas of Children’s Services: we offer a comprehensive range of professional development opportunities and are committed to ensuring that Bexley is a welcoming and enjoyable place to work.
The children and families we work with, are always kept at the centre of our practice. We believe:
children should stay with their families whenever it’s in their best interests and safe to do so
where it’s not, we must act quickly through the courts to help children find a safe space
success depends on positive, respectful relationships with families and with each other
working with families is unpredictable, so we have to create a supportive environment for our teams
the most effective practice is based on ‘showing your working out’ – so that even when things don’t go to plan, the thinking behind decisions is clear and defensible
Working in social care in Bexley is endlessly rewarding. As well as helping some of the most vulnerable people in our borough, we invest in looking after you and your career.
We offer excellent benefits, from competitive salaries and generous leave to flexible working and a wealth of health and wellness programmes.
flexible working - including opportunities for hybrid working, job sharing, compressed hours, and career breaks
a comprehensive range of training and professional development opportunities including access to research, group and e-learning, coaching and group supervision for colleagues in all roles and at every stage of their career
clear career progression pathways, within a nurturing environment, which allows social work to flourish. From opportunities to undertake social work qualification; our dedicated ASYE Academy; to our Leadership Academy offering bespoke development for our aspiring and existing leaders. There are also opportunities for practitioners to be involved in university research & academic delivery with our partner universities and students.
family leave - includes maternity, paternity, adoption and parental leave
mental health and physical wellbeing - including access to our Employee Assistance Programme, help to quit smoking, access to private healthcare, free eye tests and discounted leisure offers
financial wellbeing - excellent pension scheme, charitable giving options
generous annual leave - 25 to 33 days, with the option to purchase extra leave plus an extra bank holiday at Christmas
competitive pay - performance assessments with the opportunity for salary increments and transparent salary scales
transport offers - cycle to work scheme, carpooling, subsidised parking and interest-free season ticket loans
recognition - Thank you messaging to celebrate staff success and sharing of compliments received
professional and personal development - training and workshops to help you thrive and a discount on most Learning and Enterprise College Bexley courses
staff support networks - our networks support and encourage networking between staff with various events throughout the year
employee volunteering - get out of the office and help a local project blossom
MyChoice benefit scheme - your pick of perks from vouchers to car leasing
local authority discount scheme - attraction and theme park discounts and local offers in partnership with KAARP .
We work together in a modern, well-equipped, energising environment that supports team working and collaboration across the service and with partners