The Royal Borough of Greenwich is seeking to recruit an outreach worker for 6 months to support the extending of a recovery and intervention project to support and deliver interventions with our ‘Street Population’. This community is comprised of individuals with complex needs linked to alcohol and substance misuse, as well as chaotic behaviours associated with street drinking, rough sleeping, exploitative begging, sex-working and associated anti-social behaviour in our public spaces (ASB).

The Street Pop’ Project takes a trauma-informed approach to individuals from this community, supporting them to address their behaviour and assisting them in identifying individual circumstances and personal barriers to recovering from homelessness and reducing the risk of a return to the streets. The main element of the street pop approach is that we take key services out to the individuals that find it too overwhelming and daunting to come in and access council services in the traditional way. By understanding trauma presents in ways that makes the behaviour extremely challenging, sometimes in ways that the clients themselves may not even be aware, the project is able to make reasonable adjustments for it and have success where other interventions have failed.

This role will include supporting clients to access housing services, treatment services or engaging with recovery focused activities that promote better health and wellbeing. You will work collaboratively with internal and external stakeholders to reduce the risk of homelessness and help clients identified to recover from their issues, ensure they are linked in to the relevant service and given the appropriate advice to afford them every opportunity to act in a more pro-social manner and to re-integrate into the wider community prior to last resort enforcement action being sought.

As the Street Pop Outreach Worker, you will work in a trauma informed and holistic way to identify, create profiles of individuals and work collaboratively on intervention plans to help them achieve positive and sustainable changes to their lives and facilitate recovery from homelessness. You may accompany them to, or support them to access appointments with relevant agencies, carry out frequent micro-engagements to monitor their progress and observe behaviour patterns/change as well as facilitate/source diversionary activities for them to engage with.

You will use a trauma-informed approach to every aspect of your work, being mindful of how trauma can impact on people’s lives, behaviour and needs. You will also be expected to be fully aware of how this work can affect your own mental health and well-being. You will be able to debrief regularly with the Safer Spaces Enforcement Supervisor and your caseload will be closely supervised. You will also be able to use the Employee Assistance Programme to access telephone support if needed or speak to other trauma-informed colleagues about your cases.

With the support of colleagues, you will take a creative approach to problem-solving and evolve your practice to ensure you always keep up with the changing landscape and challenges you will face with this community. Working with individuals that can present with challenging and chaotic behaviours, you will need to be resilient and be able to see past behavioural presentation and understand this may be a trauma-based response. These individuals can be highly frustrated, negative in their outlook and quick to anger. You will be expected to adapt your practice on a case-by-case basis; this is not a one-size-fits-all role.

You will work closely with the Housing Inclusion Team, London Street Rescue, The ThamesReach Navigators, CGL: Aspire, The Beresford Project, The DWP, The RBG Modern Slavery SPOCs and any other partners or ad-hoc partners that input into the Project.

Part of your role will be to provide regular updates at on individual cases and closely monitor what you see when you are carrying out outreach and maintaining a database that will ensure other resources are being deployed to the right area.

The Street Pop Model takes a ‘last resort’ approach to enforcement and, whilst this role in not an enforcement role, you will be carry out case reviews with the Safer Spaces Enforcement Supervisor to monitor and assess the interventions you are carrying out. This may lead to enforcement-based interventions that will be coordinated by your supervisor and you may be expected to provide statements and may have to be a witness in any court proceedings.

Closing date 19th January 2021

Safer recruitment: Royal Borough of Greenwich is committed to safeguarding and promoting the welfare of children, young people and vulnerable adults and expects all staff to share this commitment. Any roles which involve working with children, young people or vulnerable adults, or roles in which the duties will involve access to sensitive information relating to children, young people or vulnerable adults, the Royal Borough will take up references prior to interview. You should provide details of referees including your current and previous employers, covering the last 5 years. Candidates can request for us not to send a reference request to their current employer prior to interview by emailing us at recruitment@royalgreenwich.gov.uk. As part of our Safer Recruitment Policy, a full employment history is also required for this role. Please provide a full employment history, together with a satisfactory written explanation of any gaps in employment. Unless otherwise stated, a Basic DBS check will be undertaken as part of the pre-employment checks for successful candidates.

Diversity Statement: Royal Borough of Greenwich values the diversity of its community and aims to have a workforce that reflects this. We therefore encourage applications from all sections of the community.

High Volume Applications: Royal Borough of Greenwich reserves the right to close any vacancy earlier than the advertised closing date should there be a high volume of applications received.

Internal to External: This opportunity has recently been advertised as an opportunity for current RBG employees (internal only advertising). Applications received during the internal advertising period have been considered and processed. If you were interviewed for this position via an application to this job advertisement during the internal advertising period, any further application will not be shortlisted.

Secondment (development opportunity): This secondment is an employee development opportunity and therefore is open to applications from existing RBG employees only. Appointment to a secondment opportunity is subject to the agreement of your Chief Officer to be released from your permanent/substantive post.

How Applications are Scored: Each application is scored according to how well the supporting statement addresses each point on the Person Specification for the role. Candidates will be short-listed for interview on the extent to which they meet the specific points within the Person Specification. The Person Specification is supplied with the job advert. When completing your application, please use the supporting statement section to tell us how you meet each of the points on the Person Specification. We need to have this information in order to consider your application. If you have a disability and are unable to meet some of the job requirements specifically because of your disability, please address this in your application. If you meet all the other criteria, you will be shortlisted and we will explore jointly with you if there are ways in which the job can be changed to enable you to meet the requirements.

DBS: This role requires a Basic DBS.

Interview Arrangements: During this time, our priority for all of our recruitment activity is to make sure our applicants, hiring departments and new starters are informed, safe and supported. Careful and thorough consideration will be given to interview arrangements and for any essential in-person recruitment, we will ensure this is held in a suitable, secure setting with additional arrangements to ensure any current safety requirements are fully adhered to.

Salary: Salaries advertised are for a standard working week of 35 hours unless otherwise stated. Please use this 'Salary Calculator to help you calculate a pro rata salary.