Specialist Support Officer

We are One Housing and we create places for people to call home and support them to live well. With a breadth of services and expertise to help people whatever their housing, care, or support needs.We are part of Riverside, a group of complementary businesses with a charitable housing association at its core. We believe in creating places that people can call home, supporting people to live well and building lasting homes and communities.

Our Homelessness and Prevention team is friendly and we love what we do. We are passionate about the high- quality support we provide.

We offer our colleagues a friendly, collaborative workplace and the chance to build a rewarding career with a not-for-profit organisation that is proud to make a genuine difference to people’s lives, each and every day.

Join our Homelessness and Prevention team as a Specialist Support Officer

Housing sits at the heart of our organisation. We believe that everyone deserves a safe, secure, affordable home. Providing care and support to those who need it is an important part of what we do. We work with people experiencing homelessness and who often have other support needs.

Our services include hostels, young peoples’ accommodation services and support delivered in the community; where we provide tailored support that prepares our customers to achieve independence and re-integrate within the community.

We’re an organisation with strong values. We Care, We are Inclusive and We are Trusted. This is what makes us such a great team, working together as one to achieve our vision of Transforming Lives, Revitalising Neighbourhoods

We have a fantastic opportunity for someone to join us in the position of Specialist Support Officer in Bedford. This role will be based at our Clarence House, This service has 29 self-contained flats and supports customers with complex needs. This could include but is not limited to drug and alcohol addiction, domestic violence and mental health needs. The customers here are supported through holistic therapies to develop their skills to live an independent life within society.

Salary: £28,313 per annum
Hours: 37.5 hours
Shifts: Early shift- 08:00-16:00 / Late shift - 13:00- 21:00 (7 day Rota)

Your responsibilities will include:

• Taking lead responsibility in application of defined specialist interventions (e.g., Social Work, Psychology, Drug & Alcohol)
• To provide clinical input for the staff and customers as directed by the service specification and the needs of the service
• Developing and maintaining positive links with key stakeholders.
• Providing 121 psychological support to customers
• Providing 121 Drug and alcohol support to customers
• Producing case formulations
• Creating an environment that promotes opportunities for customers to develop, learn and enable skills towards independence.
• Carrying out assessments to identify and prioritise needs.
• Undertaking group and one to one intervention with clients of a specialist nature (i.e CBT informed interventions, psychoeducational groups or harm minimization interventions.)
• Supporting customers to develop the necessary skills to live independently, and to access training, education and work

This service is looking for a strong character that is passionate about the support they provide. A creative person who has the capability to use their own initiative to improve the service and the lives of the customers who benefit from Clarence House.

The successful candidate will have:

• Knowledge of specialist assessment tools, methods and case formulation.
• Knowledge of evidence based specialist interventions appropriate for 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.
• Understanding and regular practice of reflective work.
• A relevant professional qualification in the area of expertise (i.e. Drug and alcohol, counselling, psychology, OT, nursing or social work or any other relevant qualifications)
• Understanding of safeguarding procedures for children and adults

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

• Salary: £28,313
• Your holidays are important to us. Take up to 28 days annual leave plus bank holidays.
• 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 year.
• Get paid to do good. We offer you two days off on full pay each year to volunteer in our communities.
• Well done! With our colleague recognition programme, you will know when you’ve done a #greatjob.
• Learning never stops. 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.

One Housing is a subsidiary of the Riverside Group. The Riverside Group was established more than 90 years ago, and is now a leading provider of affordable housing, care and support services in England and Scotland. The group manages more than 75,000 homes and operates across 160 local authorities. Riverside transforms lives by providing well maintained, high-quality housing while creating new opportunities for customers through job schemes, affordable warmth programmes, and money advice.

Working in some of the most diverse communities in the UK, we understand the strength we gain from having and supporting our diverse teams. 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.

Apply today for a fulfilling career in our Homelessness and Prevention team.

Please note that the application closing date is included as a guide and adverts may be withdrawn and vacancies closed before the guide date indicated. We recommend that if you are interested in applying for this role that you do not delay in submitting your application.