Specialist Support Worker

At One Housing, we don’t only believe that everyone deserves a safe, secure, affordable home. We also believe that everyone deserves to realise their full potential and lead a fulfilling life.

Our Homelessness and prevention team is vital to helping us deliver on this vision. We work to transform the life experience of people with mental health support needs. The support we provide is delivered in a range of settings (like supported housing, assessment centres and outreach) and our customers’ support needs can include psychosis, forensic and personality disorders.

Join our Homeless Prevention team as a Specialist Support Officer.

We have spent the last 10 years designing our services to be fully psychologically informed. Most of our services have specialist therapeutic input and colleagues have access to specialised mental health training delivered by MH professionals. All our services provide regular reflective practice spaces to our colleagues to formulate complex cases and find constructive ways forward. All these measures make us the ideal partner for NHS trusts across London with whom we deliver several integrated services.

We believe in providing care and support to our clients that will enable them to make informed decisions about their life that will increase their sense of wellbeing: this might be greater independence, better coping strategies or a richer network and sense of self achievement.

We offer you the chance to develop your own skills through regular line management supervision, reflective practice, access to a ten-day course on relevant mental health topics and working together with your specialist colleagues.

We’re an organisation with strong values. We keep our promises; we do a great job; we value diversity; we work together; and we look for ways to improve. These are what make us such a great team, working together as one to achieve our vision

We have a fantastic opportunity for someone to join us in the position of Special Support Officer.

Location: Camden

Salary: £27,488

Hours: 37.5 Hours per week Monday-Friday 9am-5.30pm

This service delivers tenancy support across 70 units (properties) designated for former rough sleepers. The service is based on the Mayor’s ‘Move-On Programme Guidelines’ for delivering support to former rough sleepers and will focus on providing tenancy sustainment, employment, training and volunteering opportunities and ultimately, support to move on into independent accommodation, which are fundamental aspects to improving the quality of life of our customers for a period up to 2 years.

Your responsibilities will include:

• Undertaking group & one to one interventions with clients of a specialist nature (i.e. CBT informed interventions, psychoeducational groups or harm minimisation interventions)
• Providing a comprehensive support planning service to customers in line with the department’s policies, procedures and approach.
• Making full use of IT & other technologies for appropriate tasks, including the use of word processing, spreadsheets, email etc.
• Participating in cross-service initiatives & projects in relation to their specialist area (i.e. organisational training, reflective case management, WOW projects, peer support groups, etc.)
• Carrying out assessment to identify and prioritize needs.
• Using SMART goal planning to provide needs led holistic support.

We are looking for someone who believes in working together as part of a team, who shares our values and who is friendly, engaged and committed to achieving great outcomes for our customers. The successful candidate will have:

• Knowledge of specialist assessment tools, methods and case formulation.
• Knowledge of evidence based specialist interventions appropriate for mental health and community settings.
• Experience of undertaking customer assessments, support planning and key-working with a clear outcome focus
• Knowledge about recovery model, peer support and coproduction procedures.
• Experience working in community settings therapeutically, including assessments, designing interventions and demonstrating outcomes.
• Experience running therapeutic groups.
• Ability to react to crisis situations in a calm effective way.
• Basic level of IT skills and literacy
• Strong time management skills and ability to prioritise workload
• Ability to communicate effectively in writing including the preparation of letters reports & file notes
• Ability to contribute to effective team working
• Understanding of safeguarding procedures for children and adults

Our Life@One benefits offer you an array of perks designed with your wellbeing in mind.

• Your holidays are important to us. Take up to 28 days annual leave plus bank
• Lean travel. Spread the cost of your commute with a season ticket loans and our Cycle2Work scheme, open to all colleagues
• Looking forward to your big bucket list trip? You can buy or sell up to five days annual leave each [not for statutory employees]
• Get paid to do good. We offer you two days off on full pay each year to volunteer in our
• Look after your loved ones. Our healthcare cash back plan allows you to claim back cash for you and your family’s healthcare.
• Well done! With our colleague recognition programme you will know when you’ve done a #greatjob
• Learning never One Academy, our innovative, in-house learning and development offering is designed to help you take your career to the next level.
• We’re here for you. Our employee assistance programme offers counselling and support for you and your family 24/7.
• Stay book-smart. Take up to five paid days off per year to study toward a relevant qualification.
• Experience new things. We offer you a career break after 3 years’ continuous service.

As an organisation with a strong social purpose, One Housing works in some of the most diverse communities in the UK and our workforce reflects that. As of December 2021, One Housing merged with the Riverside Group, creating one of the country's largest housing associations, with more than 75,000 homes. This follows a shared recognition that we are better and stronger together; and that when we combine, we will be able to do more for our customers and the communities we serve.

At One Housing, our people are our strength which is why we work very hard to enable all employees to bring their authentic self to work. This commitment is reflected in our hybrid working policy, our diversity groups support network, our wellbeing initiatives and our employee benefits.

We understand that the different skills and experiences that our colleagues from different backgrounds bring to us allow us to make better decisions, consider different views and be an altogether more interesting and cohesive place to work. We welcome applications from everyone.