Job Introduction
Support and Inclusion Officers working across BCP
Are you passionate about supporting people and helping to prevent homelessness?
BCP is committed to ending homelessness in Bournemouth, Christchurch and Poole by ensuring everyone has a safe place to live that they can call home. We are looking for highly motivated Support and Inclusion Officers to join our front-line housing team to help deliver this vision. If you are passionate about supporting people to prevent homelessness, we have exciting career opportunities available.
Vacancies have arisen in these teams:
Prevention: In this team , you play a vital role of working alongside Housing Options Officers to prevent customers threat of homelessness. You will have a varied role creatively assisting and empowering customers to find ways to remain in their current accommodation or independently looking for alternative accommodation. This can include guiding and assisting them with communication with their landlord, resolving financial difficulties, applying for benefits or support and making referrals.
Relief: In this team, you will work directly with customers experiencing homelessness, providing them with the support and resources they need to overcome their situation. You will work creatively alongside customers and their support networks to help identify solutions to enable them to rapidly secure settled housing solutions ensuring any need for temporary accommodation is brief.
Hospital Discharge: In this team, you will support customers who are in temporary accommodation environments due to being unable to return home following discharge from hospital. You will assist customers to move into more secure and settled accommodation. You will work alongside specialist housing officers and hospital teams to achieve our goals to reduce delayed hospital discharges, repeat admissions and repeat A&E attendances.
Tenancy Sustainment: In this team, you will work with customers and their landlords to enable them to successfully establish themselves in a new tenancy, using a person centred, strengths-based approach and early intervention, so that any future or repeated risk of homelessness is minimised. In addition, you will support customers engagement with meaningful occupation to improve their income and long-term security in the tenancy. Building a relationship of trust with customers is critical to the success in this role as is the ability to respond quickly to address any threat to the tenancy.
Rough Sleeping Prevention: In this team, you will support customers who are rough sleeping or are at risk of rough sleeping. You will work creatively alongside customers and their support networks to access suitable housing solutions. You will work with support customers engagement with meaningful occupation and tenancy sustainment. You will be a part of the team covering our Somewhere Safe to Stay Projects offering short term trauma informed assessment bedspaces. You will be part of BCP’s aim to prevent rough sleeping where possible and where it is not possible ensure it is rare, brief and non-recurring.
Please specify which of these roles you are most interested in on your application.
For all roles, you should have an awareness of homelessness and its many root causes, as well as an ability to put people at ease, exercise empathy and provide trauma informed support.
These rewarding roles will challenge you every day to use your excellent people skills and problem-solving ability. You will be part of a supportive and motivated team, helping people in often complex and difficult situations.
If you have experience of working with people and the skills to;
- Communicate effectively
- Manage a caseload with competing demands
- Collaborate with other teams and partner agencies
- Provide tailored support to customers to maintain accommodation
- Find creative solutions to prevent and relieve homelessness
Then we want to hear from you!
Experience in this field is desirable, but we are looking for those who have the right attitude and behaviours to learn and carry out this role.
Please read the job description and person specification and apply now!
Hybrid Working Opportunities and Flexible Working Available
We offer opportunities for training and professional development.
This authority is committed to safeguarding and promoting the welfare of the community and expects all staff and volunteers to share the same commitment. Applicants to this post will be required to complete the appropriate level of Disclosure & Barring Service Check. Please refer to the Person Specification for more details.
This post is covered by Part 7 of the Immigration Act (2016) and therefore the ability to speak fluent English is an essential requirement for the role
For an informal discussion about this post please contact Kerry Payne on 01202 118476 or kerry.payne@bcpcouncil.gov.uk
Previous applicants to this post need not apply.
About BCP Council
BCP Council provides services to a diverse community of 400,000 residents and employs more than 5,000 people. Our area includes over 15 miles of beautiful world-renowned coastline. We can offer career defining roles to transform and improve services. By working with us, you can help deliver a vision of a thriving, word-class, prosperous and inclusive place for generations to come.
Our Benefits
We offer an excellent benefits package for further details see our website
As a result of the creation of BCP Council in 2019, we are working on simplifying our terms and conditions of service and will be creating a single pay structure which is to be applicable for all employees. It is important to us that we offer benefits that our colleagues value as part of their total employment package and we are reviewing these to make sure we have it right. We have been in a process of collective bargaining since 2019 and have positively worked forward to reach an agreed position with the unions for the new contractual offer. This has taken longer than we hoped and therefore we are having to consider all alternative avenues available to enable us to remove inequality in the organisation as a result of bringing together 3 councils.
We are in the process of establishing a timescale for implementation, and all colleagues joining us will be included in these changes. We want to reassure everyone that whichever route is taken to reach the new terms and conditions, we can honour continuous service and there will not be any job reduction as a result of the implementation of Pay and Reward. If you have any questions at all about this process, please feel free to raise this with the hiring manager.
DBS
BCP Council is committed to safeguarding and promoting the welfare of the community and expects all staff and volunteers to share the same commitment. Applicants to this post will be required to complete the appropriate level of Disclosure & Barring Service Check. Please refer to the Job Description or Role Profile for more details.
Attached documents
