Senior Criminal Justice Keyworker (Leeds)

PLEASE NOTE - Applicants will only be considered if you provide both a CV and Cover Letter

The role is only open to women, in accordance with the sex-based exemptions of the Equality Act 2010 pursuant to Schedule 9, Part 1.

Senior Criminal Justice Key Worker (Leeds)

Salary: £30,136

Location: Leeds, with travel across West Yorkshire

Hours: 37 Hours per week (full-time) Part-time hours also available

Closing Date: We are recruiting on a rolling basis, with interviews scheduled as applications are received. Shortlisted candidates will be contacted for interview shortly after applying.

We reserve the right to close this vacancy early if a suitable candidate is appointed before the closing date.

Interview Date: Shortlisted candidates will be invited to interview as soon as possible with interviews planned on a rolling basis.

Together Women is looking for an outstanding Senior Key Worker to be part of our Leeds Team.

The Senior Criminal Justice Key Worker will engage with and provide intensive support to women on probation, offering needs-led, emotional and practical support relating to the Accommodation, Finance, Benefits and Debts, Family and Significant Others. Emotional Wellbeing, Dependency and Recovery, Lifestyle and Associates, Employment and Education, and Social Inclusion support pathways.

Join Our Team

• Are you driven and passionate about working within a women-centred support service?
• Are you looking for a dynamic and rewarding role working for an organisation that delivers specialist gender specific support to women and girls?
• Do you believe in our values; to listen and support, to empower and respect, collaborate, innovate and take accountability?

What we can offer you - Employee Benefits:

• 25 days holiday increasing by one day per year to a max of 30 days, plus public holidays
• Pension scheme with 5% employer contribution
• Annual cost of living increase up to 4%
• Enhanced Training and Induction programme covering all areas of Together Women’s work
• Access to our Employee Assistance Programme with discount offers and free telephone counselling service
• Access to our online wellbeing platform
• Employee eye-care scheme and free eye tests
• Organisation wide away days
• Career development pathways

Role Summary

In our gender-specific centres, we provide holistic support to women by women, to overcome challenges and address needs. We help women build upon their strengths and work through any barriers that are preventing them from progressing and achieving their potential.

The Senior Criminal Justice Key Worker will engage with and provide intensive support to women on probation, offering needs-led, emotional and practical support relating to the Accommodation, Finance, Benefits and Debts, Family and Significant Others. Emotional Wellbeing, Dependency and Recovery, Lifestyle and Associates, Employment and Education, and Social Inclusion support pathways.

You will work closely with Probation staff, who are co-located at our Centre, as well as with Together Women teams and local community organisations to enable and encourage women to access relevant support and resources. You will work with women to help them build upon their strengths and work through any barriers that are preventing them from progressing and achieving their potential.

Working within the Women’s Criminal Justice Team you will be proactive, organised, personable and empathic. You will need to be able to work effectively independently, sometimes under pressure to meet challenging deadlines. Prison clearance will be required. As well as having a caseload, the Senior Key Worker will be vital in supporting the centre manager and helping to develop and manage the teams across Yorkshire.

Working within the women’s team you will be dynamic, personable, creative and empathic.

Key Accountabilities

Responsible for a caseload of women, to whom you will provide high quality customer support via the following:

• Promoting, receiving and processing referrals in line with current practice guidelines.
• Safeguarding vulnerable women from self-neglect, abuse and harm by acting in accordance to Together Women’s Safeguarding Policies and Government Legislation
• Identifying and assessing individuals’ support needs including risk assessment and informed by relevant background information.
• Building effective relationships with women; to encourage them to identify and respond to their needs, interests and personal development; and to provide guidance and support to enable them to deal with a wide range of issues affecting their lives.
• Working within and alongside an integrated model of care involving Health, Criminal Justice System and Social Care professionals.
• Providing continuous and consistent support to women and supporting them to navigate and access services.
• Delivering gender-specific and trauma-informed interventions in 1:1s / by facilitating group sessions.
• Encouraging feedback from women using the service in order to promote quality assurance.
• Supporting women to help them make progress feel more stable and remain motivated to access current and future support and treatment.
• Contribute to measuring and monitoring systems as required.
• Ensure all necessary records are properly maintained in line with policies on client files, finance and administration.
• Use evaluation, learning, experience and use feedback to support service development.
• Manage and update own skills base to ensure quality service delivery and personal development in role.

Additional Accountabilities 

This post will manage a caseload as well as be able to fulfil additional duties specific to the Senior Keyworker role including:

• Leading on the development and delivery of the RAR groups and in consultation with Probation Practitioners across Yorkshire and identify new groups to ensure a wide breadth of services are offered to the women.
• Building positive effective, working relationships with Probation Practitioners to produce better outcomes for the women referred into our services. This will be either on a one-to-one, case-by-case basis and/or regular representation at PDU (Probation Delivery Units) team meetings.
• Supporting the Centre Manager in managing any hubs they oversee and their services ensuring that the buildings and programmes, continue to be fit for purpose for the delivery of probation services.
• Taking a proactive lead on the customer data recording system ensuring the West Yorkshire Justice Team are competent in using it and be a reference point for any issues.
• If applicable, supporting the development of any hubs, increasing the provision available, building new partnerships and leading on identifying new opportunities.
• Developing, growing and managing a team of volunteers to support the delivery of services.
• Taking responsibility for customer feedback developing new and innovative ways of facilitating this, supporting and training the wider West Yorkshire team and collating the responses in order to implement suggestions.
• Supporting the Centre Manager in leading the Criminal Justice specialist team including identifying and coordinating staff training for trends experienced etc.  
• Representing Together Women on locality based multi-agency groups and wider network.

Role Requirements

Essential Criteria:

• Experience of the delivery of services for vulnerable individuals
• Knowledge and understanding of the challenges faced by women, the pathways into offending, and the impact this can have on their life chances and outcomes
• Experience of carrying a caseload of vulnerable individuals within a support role/ frontline capacity, ideally with experience of strengths-based working and/or trauma-informed approaches
• Experience assessing needs and risks, and translating these into a person-centred support and safety plan
• Experience of case management and recording, or equivalent record keeping experience
• Experience of building positive partnerships with other agencies and experience/an understanding of the benefits of collaborative problem solving
• Commitment to ongoing personal and professional development
• Strong IT skills (PC literate and competent in using MS Office and multiple CRM systems)
• GCSE (or equivalent) in Maths & English - Grade C or above
• Satisfactory enhanced DBS check and enhanced Level 1 Vetting

Desirable Requirements:

• Relevant NVQ or equivalent at Level 3 or 4
• Experience & competence in report writing
• Advocacy experience or skills
• Experience/ an understanding of delivering interventions or programmes which help women recover from complex trauma, develop strategies to overcome obstacles and challenges, and build their skills
• Experience/ an understanding of trauma responsive support for women.
• Experience of facilitating group work
• Knowledge of child and adult safeguarding

Our competency framework: qualities we are looking for in candidates:

Client focus

Service Provision

• Commitment and enthusiasm for working with our customer group
• Empathy with client group
• Ensures that the needs, wishes and aspirations of women are the main driver for casework interventions, providing encouragement and support to enable her to make choices about her future, and advocating on her behalf when necessary.
• Has/ is working towards core skills which ensure that the women receive support that is personalised, strengths-based and trauma-informed.

Recording & monitoring

• Maintain case files and administrative/monitoring systems effectively
• Understands the importance and can describe the benefits of good record keeping, and contract monitoring/ reporting.
• Manages caseload and delivers support as per the requirements of the service contract and the internal quality audit framework requirements.

Interpersonal Skills

Working with others:

• Builds and maintains effective working relationships, with customers and stakeholders; within the organisation and external to it
• Manage and ensure that clear professional and emotional boundaries are established
• Demonstrates a keen understanding of the ability to adapt one’s approach when working with different groups (e.g. customers, partner agencies, stakeholders and colleagues)

Communication

• Presents spoken and written information clearly and appropriately and to a high standard
• Ensures that women feel informed and are involved in decisions about them.

Diversity

• Builds trust and demonstrates respect for others, showing an awareness of the impact on own behaviour on others
• Treats everyone fairly and consistently
• Demonstrates an open and non-judgemental approach, seeking to understand others’ experiences and perspectives.
• Demonstrates efforts to provide inclusive environments, culturally specific support, and promotes a feeling of psychological safety for all women.

Personal effectiveness

Risk management

• Works in line with policy and procedure
• Applies and promotes risk management
• Aware of the need for confidentiality in dealing with information; of when confidentiality should be preserved and of the circumstances when it is right to reveal confidential information and to whom to is right to do so

Approach to work

• Willing to learn and develop
• Plans, organises and implements work, on own initiative with minimum direct supervision
• Flexible and creative approach at work; able to adapt to the changing needs of the program
• Ability to manage time, prioritise and meet deadlines
• Organised approach, with keen admin skills and attention to detail
• Makes clear decisions and deal positively with challenges

We actively encourage applications from women from a variety of backgrounds, and with a range of skills and experiences. We are particularly interested to hear from Black, Asian and minority ethnic women and women who have personal experience of the criminal justice system. This post is open to female applicants only as being female is deemed to be a genuine occupational requirement under Schedule 9, Paragraph 1 of the Equality Act 2010.

To apply: Please submit your up-to-date CV with a cover letter setting out how you meet the criteria for the role and outlining your interest in the position.

PLEASE NOTE - applications without a cover letter will not be considered.

Please also complete our equality and diversity monitoring form - https://forms.office.com/e/pVGhLApKPz

The information you provide will:

• not be used as part of the selection process;
• not be seen by the interview panel;
• only be used for statistical purposes. No information will be published which allows any individual to be identified.

Job Types: Full-time, Part-time

Pay: £30,136.00 per year

Benefits:

• Company pension

Application question(s):

• Please ensure you have included a two-page covering letter expressing how you meet the role requirements and any relevant experience of the key accountabilities.

Applications that do not include a cover letter will not be considered.

Work Location: In person