AddressAn excellent opportunity has arisen for a dedicated and passionate individual to join Ofsted regulated Kent Supported Homes; supported lodgings service within KCC 18+ Care Leavers Service as an Accommodation Officer. This post will be based in Worrall House - West Malling, Kent. The role has the primary focus of supporting Host families who in-turn offer a home and support for a number of children & young adults, many from KCC’s Care Leaving cohort, including both citizen and former UASC individuals. This is currently a fixed term role until March 31st 2025, with the possibility of extension beyond this date.
This role is open to Secondments for internal KCC staff.
About the role:
- Manage a caseload of Kent Supported Homes Hosts to meet young people’s assessed eligible needs.
- Develop and maintain an extensive knowledge of available resources to support providers in meeting the needs of the service users.
- Support integrated working with Social Workers, Personal Advisers and a range of Hosts, to identify the required outcomes of each young person that the Host must meet.
- Deliver training to Hosts where needs be to ensure they have sufficient skills required for effective support.
- Respond to emergency planning issues and ensure continuity arrangements are effective.
- Support the Personal Adviser for each young person to ensure the correct independence focussed support is accessed, including financial (e.g. benefits) and other (e.g. independence resources / floating support etc).
- Travel countywide and out of county, when required.
- Remain flexible to service and service user needs across all areas of service delivery.
- Ensuring legal and regulatory compliance expectations of Hosts/Landlords and their properties (Gas certs, DBS etc) are met and tracked and support to access provided where required.
- Present as a positive and supportive representative of KCC in internal and external arenas.
- Other related tasks as required by the Accommodation Team Manager.
About you:
- Ideally experienced in the field of supporting those who host vulnerable children/adults and empower them to sustain suitable accommodation, ideally within a supported / family environment
- Knowledge of relevant legislation and regulations in the support of children and young people
- Experienced in delivery of sensitive information and challenging problematic behaviours.
- Keen to provide excellent support to those who directly support vulnerable children and young adults.
- Take a firm and supportive trauma-informed approach which focus on amplifying the young person’s voice and ensuring that this is heard within the context of their support.
- Robust and comprehensive planning approaches, with regular review and maintaining a focus on positive outcomes for the young person in their move towards independence.
This post is subject to an Enhanced Disclosure Application to the Disclosure and Barring Service.
This post is considered by KCC to be a customer-facing position. 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/Welsh sufficient for the effective performance of the job requirements. The appropriate standards are set out in the Job Description/Person Specification.
Please read the job description before applying for this role.
If you would like an informal discussion about this opportunity in advance of the closing date, please contact the Accommodation Team Manager via Sebastian.Blythe@kent.gov.uk
Contact Details
For further information regarding this role, please contact:
Sebastian.Blythe@kent.gov.uk
About The Company
KCC is committed to building a workforce which reflects the diversity of the county’s working residents, encouraging applications from people of all ages, abilities, genders, sexual orientations, ethnic backgrounds, faiths and those with caring responsibilities, and aspires to create an inclusive workplace where everyone can be themselves at work.
Please note – if you are interested, please apply as soon as possible as the closing date for this advert may be earlier than stated should a number of suitably qualified candidates apply.
