Housing Support Practitioner

Salary: £23,700 per annum

Location: East Lothian

Contract/Hours: Permanent – Full-Time – 37 hours per week- Night Shift

Reward: 29 days annual leave PLUS bank holidays, professional qualifications, excellent training and development opportunities, flexible maternity, adoption and paternity packages, up to 7% employer contribution pension, discount portal with your favourite brands.

Vulnerable children in the UK need your help

Wherever you work in the Action for Children family, you’ll be helping to change the lives of the most vulnerable children in the UK.

Last year, we helped more than 670,000 children and families across the UK. From direct work in communities to national campaigning, we are focused on making sure every child has a safe and happy childhood, and the foundations they need to thrive.

Why Action for Children?

Working here is more than a job. Everyone in the Action for Children family is passionate about protecting and supporting children. It’s the sense of purpose that drives us every single day. Because we know that, when we work together, we can make a huge difference to bring lasting improvements to vulnerable children’s lives.

A bit about the role

New Horizons provides residential housing support to young people; aged 16-25 years referred by East Lothian Housing Department as homeless or threatened with homelessness. The Service seeks to support young people to prepare for more independent living working with residents on a range of issues e.g. budgeting, food preparation and safe storage, household chores and practical skills, managing neighbourhood relations and disputes, accessing specialist services and employability.

We are looking for a Young Person Practitioner (Nightshift) who can engage with young people providing structured and focused housing support to assist young people to gain the skills to live more independently or sustain their accommodation in the community. This support may be provided as a 1:1 or as small focused group work. The nightshift rota is a 2 week rolling rota, working between the hours of 10pm – 8am . Week 1 will encompass working 2 shifts off, 2 shifts on and 3 shifts off. Week 2 will encompass working 2 shifts on, 2 shifts off, 3 shifts on. 

How you’ll help to create brighter futures

-Building working relationships with multi-agency partners from the statutory and voluntary sectors to deliver the best outcomes for young people, including ELC Housing Department, benefits agencies, specialist health services, employment and training providers.

-Supporting young people to engage with local agencies and organisations which assists them to sustain their accommodation and place within the community e.g. accessing leisure activities, GP and health services. 

-Ensuring that the Service complies with all Action for Children and East Lothian Council Standards and Procedures and with regard to case file recording / paperwork, incident and accident reporting, safeguarding and health and safety. Practitioners will use Action for Children e-systems to identify needs, interventions and the Outcome Star to measure and record outcomes.

Let’s talk about you

– SVQ3 or equivalent or a desire to work towards this in the first year of employment, to enable registration to the SSSC as a worker in Housing Support.

– Experience of working within a multi-agency social care, early years or health environment and applying safeguarding procedures.

– Involvement of managing cases, in accordance with agreed procedures and completing assessments, planning and reviews to ensure positive outcomes.

– Working knowledge of an outcome based approach to planning, delivering and reviewing services.

– Producing concise and accurate reports to agreed standards, formats and timelines, which may be used ultimately for formal reviews.

Good to know

Application Process

There are five sections to complete: Personal Details, CV, Supporting Statement & Information, Equality & Diversity, Submission & Declaration.

Talent Pool

We know talent when we see it. But sometimes we find the right person but not for the right job. We’d love to keep your details for when the right job comes up. Let us know if you’d rather we didn’t.