Support Worker - Justice Service

The Growth Company's (GC) Justice Services has an exciting opportunity for Support Worker in Custody (Activity Facilitator) within our Creating Future Opportunities (CFO) Evolution Programme.   

You will be dual trained as a Support Worker and Activity Facilitator and with complete oversight of the CFO Evolution programme, provide advice, guidance, coaching, mentoring and support to a caseload of participants via regular one-to-one  meetings and group interventions as appropriate.

We help to make a lasting difference to the lives of people throughout the North of England and beyond, by supporting individuals to gain meaningful employment.

Our highly skilled advisers and keyworkers work with a range of individuals; from people who have found themselves recently out of work, to those with complex barriers such as physical disabilities, mental ill-health, Benefit and debt.

Due to the nature of the contract. this vacancy is only open to male applicants. 

Key Responsibilities:

• Engage and case-manage eligible participants on the CFO Evolution programme by providing ongoing resettlement support.
• Carry out initial and ongoing assessment of support needs.
• Create an Action Plan, planning and designing appropriate activities, training programmes and interventions.
• Provide advocacy, mentoring, advice and guidance and training interventions that meet the needs of individual participants.
• Establish and deliver high-quality, engaging 1:1 and group sessions.
• Monitor and track participants’ progress (distance travelled).
• Develop strong relationships with HMPPS/agencies offering support.
• Contribute to making contact and establishing relationships with new participants and assist them to understand the benefits of engaging with the CFO Evolution programme.
• Where appropriate, feed into stage 2 and 3 of the CFO Wing provision by providing holistic wrap-around with general elements of resettlement support.
• Complete the Pre-release inventory and associated actions.

About You:

• Working with offenders, or those disaffected and marginalised from mainstream services, in training, guidance, advice and counselling environments desirable.
• High level guidance skills, with the ability to deliver one-to-one and group sessions to at least Grade 2 standard.
• A warm, approachable empathetic style and the ability to establish a rapport and build relationships with participants that supports their progression to education, training and employment and facilitates desistance from crime.

Skills Required:

• Information Advice and Guidance and/or teaching qualifications, (or equivalent), desired, but experience working intensively with individuals and supporting their progression is most important.
• Knowledge regarding the issues affecting the rehabilitation of offenders, and desistance theory.
• Working with offenders, or those disaffected and marginalised from mainstream services, in training, guidance, advice and counselling environments desirable.
• Knowledge of National Probation Services or HM Prison environments and/or training, education, and employment opportunities locally and nationally, and of training and guidance. 

We are committed to safeguarding and promoting the welfare of everyone including vulnerable adults and young people, we expect all staff to share this commitment. All Education and Skills appointments will be subject to Safer Recruitment Procedures which include a DBS check and a professional social media check. These checks will be conducted by Due Diligence Limited (DDC Ltd) on behalf of GC. Please note that the successful candidate will not be required to pay for this.

If you are on the Barred List, it is against the law to apply and to be hired for a role that includes regulated activity with the concerned group.

We are committed to increasing the diversity of our workforce, we provide a guaranteed interview to applicants who meet the essential requirements for a role. This commitment applies to candidates who have a disability or are from a diverse ethnic community.

As part of our application process, you can ask to be considered under this scheme if you are from an ethnic community or have a physical or mental impairment that has a substantial and long-term negative effect on your ability to do normal daily activities. Providing that you meet the essential criteria for the role, you will then be invited for an interview. Your guaranteed interview application will only be shared with the Hiring Manager and our Internal Recruitment Team.

We are a member of the national campaign Ban the Box; this campaign aims to open opportunities for people with convictions to compete for jobs. We’re supporting the campaign by removing conviction questions at the applications stage.

GC aims to promote a culture of flexibility and agile working. Going forward we will be transitioning to a culture where full agile working will be a feature of many of our roles. We also recognise that there may be a need for more permanent flexibility in your working arrangements and in such cases, we encourage you to have these discussions at the interview stage, to enable your flexible working request to be considered as early as possible.