The role
About Southwark:
We are the largest local authority social landlord in London, managing 55,000 homes lived in by 40% of Southwark’s residents. We are home to over 18,300 businesses including iconic London venues and social enterprises and we have a young, diverse and growing population.
At Southwark we are committed to making our borough just and fair and are taking positive action to tackle inequalities. Our residents and communities are our greatest asset and the passion we have for Southwark is shared by millions of Londoners who enjoy our outstanding cultural offer, use our hospitals and attend our universities. Our refreshed borough plan and focus on Southwark Stands Together, (which is our work with Southwark’s communities and the council’s staff to tackle racism, injustice and inequality) underpins all that we do.
The Role:
Southwark Housing Solutions Service has a vacancy for a Housing First Officer to join our established in-house Housing First Team. We are a small, multidisciplinary team dedicated to working with persons experiencing multiple exclusion homelessness (MEH). The team is able to draw upon the council's position as the largest social landlord in London in seeking to support persons who have experienced rough sleeping into permanent, independent accommodation.
Importantly, our focus is on understanding that the needs of our clients extend beyond 'bricks-and-mortar' and into a more wide-ranging and open-ended engagement.
We are also a research active team. We are part of the NIHR-funded HOME research project, investigating housing-led responses to MEH. Our clients have also formed an Experts-by-Experience Advisory Board who are active in both operational and research/academic fields.
The Housing First Team benefits from externally facilitated Reflective Practice provided by the Centre for Institutional Analysis, Goldsmiths, University of London.
About you:
You will be an experienced practitioner from a field related to working with persons experiencing multiple exclusion homelessness (MEH) and rough sleeping. This might be from the third-sector (outreach, accommodation services, floating support), local authority-led services, substance misuse, health, housing, criminal justice, or related disciplines.
You will have well-developed rapport- and relationship-building skills, and a deep knowledge of both the issues facing persons experiencing MEH and interventions congruent with those needs. You will intensively manage a small caseload of Housing First clients and be skilled in casework, (risk) assessment, support planning, co-production, and inter-disciplinary collaboration.
You will have strong skills around safeguarding and practical matters such as welfare benefits, use of IT systems, and case management/recording. We welcome applicants with lived experience.
If you think that you may be well suited to this role, please click on the job description for further details about this role. We look forward to receiving your application.
Additional details
This is a Fixed-term contract until 31st March 2025.
This post requires a satisfactory Disclosure and Barring Service (DBS) DBS check at Enhanced level.
Benefits and more information:
In your role, we want you to feel supported, challenged and rewarded. You will benefit from our family-friendly policies including flexible working, home working, and a local government pension scheme, plus many other staff benefits. You will join a motivated, driven and supportive team that strives for excellence and values its members. You will also be part of a successful and high-achieving development team that is making a real difference to the lives of residents in the borough. For more information about the wide variety of benefits you can take advantage of please visit our Staff Benefits page.
Recruitment timetable
Application closing date: 11:59 PM on 16th June 2024
Interview date: 28th & 29th June 2024.
Guaranteed Interview Scheme:
As part of our commitment to inclusion, we offer guaranteed interviews for specific groups of people. To qualify, you'll need to meet the minimum requirements for the role, and identify with one of the below criteria:
• Members of the Armed Forces and veterans
• Are currently in care, or have previously been in care
• If you consider yourself to be disabled or if you have a long-term health condition
We are an organisation who is passionate about our people and understands that richness of diversity is a requirement to provide the best possible services to our communities. This is demonstrated through our council-wide ambitious commitment to tackle racial inequality in our communities and workforce through our Southwark Stands Together programme. We particularly welcome applications from members of the Black, Asian and ethnic minority communities to increase representation at senior management level in the Council.
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