Job Ref: 213746789

Date: 2021-05-13 14:46:08

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Recruiting 2 Senior Support Workers to join our Young Peoples service in Milton Keynes!

£23,543 per annum, working 40 hours per week, plus 25 days Annual Leave, Pension schemes, Staff discounts, healthcare and more.
Milton Keynes services is a mix of children in need, looked after children and care leavers (as well as those who are not open to social services). The young people have complex and multifaceted needs including emotional and mental health issues, drug and alcohol misuse, partaking in criminal activity and anti-social behaviours or being at risk of sexual exploitation. Whilst the majority of young people referred will not yet be ready to live fully independently, they will be ready to begin the transition to adulthood and develop their independent living skills. The young people will require a supportive, structured and stable environment with clear boundaries in which to do this.

Senior support workers are expected to work with the young people that have the most complex needs as well as support their colleagues with their young people. They should be an experienced point of contact in their team, form partnerships with external agencies and lead on co production and customer engagement. You would work as part of a team of support workers and specialists, providing support to the rest of the team as needed.

The service implements and promotes the Psychologically Informed Environment (PIE) model. This is an approach which was developed to support people out of homelessness, in particular those who have experienced complex trauma or are diagnosed with a personality disorder. However, its application is far broader than only homelessness. It considers the psychological needs of staff: developing skills and knowledge, increasing motivation, job satisfaction and resilience.

Senior Support Workers are required to have either an extra dimension of experience or a higher qualification level as determined relevant for the particular post. You will focus on areas such as customer involvement and co-production. You will provide information to our young people around social inclusion, ETE opportunities and be responsible for sourcing, building and liaising with partner agencies that can offer support to our cohort of young people. You will be responsible for the organising of hostel activities and their implementation.

Key Responsibilities:

– Be a go to for other staff members in relation to housing benefits queries, DWP queries, education training and employment opportunities for their young people, recording information to the required service standard, escalating safe guarding concerns and inspire, motivate their colleagues to perform to a high standard
– Support customers with training and volunteering opportunities both internally and externally
– Building supportive, trusting relationships with customers and external partners, creating a positive atmosphere
– Conducting regular key work sessions that are innovative and engaging in order to achieve Support Plan goals
– Key-working the most complex service-users and support other staff members with key working their most complex cases
– Create support plans for providing appropriate services based on on-going assessment and reflecting the services and resources available to enable customer to progress in their recovery

This is not an exhaustive list of all the duties and responsibilities that may be required from time to time and is subject to change in accordance with the needs of Look Ahead.

Skills, Knowledge and Experience
Essential:
– Up to NVQ Level 3 or equivalent in a relevant area OR experience in the social care/charity sector.
– Experience building and develop strong professional partnerships with external providers aligned to their specialism
Desirable:
– Experience in a similar role with a proven track record of customer engagement as well as effective partnership working.
For more information or to apply please visit our website

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