Rough Sleeping Co-ordinator

As the Council’s Rough Sleeping Coordinator, you can make a powerful contribution to our Housing Options and Support Service.

You will work alongside friendly, highly skilled and collaborative colleagues who share your commitment to improving services for vulnerable people who are homeless. The Rough Sleeping Team ensures support and accommodation pathways are person-centered, accessible and high-quality.

You’ll discover an environment in which people are ambitious and inspired to meet challenges by embracing new ways of working. At London Borough of Waltham Forest you’ll get involved in making change happen through creative service improvements, You’ll support managers to develop and manage new partnerships and relationships with key stakeholders and residents.

You’ll actively engage with and support commissioned and contracted service providers who deliver frontline support services, accommodation and person-led housing solutions. We’ll look to you to help make sure our accommodation and support pathways address the needs of different groups, many of whom have complex and challenging needs, safely and effectively. Specifically, you’ll help us deliver a focus through all our services to prevent homelessness and rough sleeping.

A personalised approach to support for people who are rough sleeping experienced or who are homeless is at the heart of our mission. You’ll work alongside colleagues, service providers and commissioners to develop this approach. You’ll also collaborate with them to find solutions for delivering enhanced services and support a wide take-up of our accommodation offer. Crucially, you’ll support our Housing Operations Managers to ensure our deliver model meets the diverse physical and mental health needs of people who are sleeping rough in the borough., This position is fundamental to the provision of housing advice and homelessness services to vulnerable single adults who may approach the council for housing assistance as a result of the Housing Act 1996 and Homelessness Reduction Act 2017. This is a specialist role that will be at the forefront of homelessness prevention. In this role you will work with those who are most excluded from main stream services. You will work with vulnerable customers who require extensive and complex interventions to help resolve their situation. You will work in close partnership with a range of statutory and non-statutory agencies and partners to provide a coordinated response to prevent and reduce rough sleeping and street based activity within Waltham Forest.

• Knowledge of all homelessness legislation as covered by the Housing Act 1996, Part Vll, Homelessness Reduction Act 2017, housing advice law (security of tenure, disrepair, rent arrears) the Protection from Eviction Act 1977, housing allocations as covered by Part Vl of the Housing Act 1996 as amended by the Homelessness Act 2002 and other relevant housing legislation.

• Detailed knowledge of welfare benefits, including social fund grants and payments, fuel rights, debt management and income maximisation

• Knowledge of adult and children social care

• Must have a thorough understanding of inner-city housing issues and how these contribute to rough sleeping

• Awareness of the issues and initiatives facing local authority housing

• Knowledge of services, benefits and support available to those experiencing housing difficulties and especially those who end up rough sleeping

Experience:

• Experience of providing housing related advice and support to rough sleepers

• Experience of managing a team

• Experience of working within a team

• Experience of working in a demanding front line inner-city customer service environment

• Experience of dealing effectively with confrontational and challenging situations

• Experience of working with homeless clients and those in housing need

• Experience of carrying out face-to-face interviews, investigations and negotiating with homeless clients

• Experience of effective record keeping, including electronically

• Experience of successfully working to performance targets and tight deadlines

• Experience of effective partnership working

• Experience of managing or leading a work-based project

• Experience of applying for and attracting different funding streams to improve service delivery

Skills:

• Interpersonal skills, active listening, advocacy and negotiation

• Communication skills, able to write detailed technical letters and reports, direct complex interviews, convey complex advice simply and understandably to differing audiences

• IT literate and able to use computer software effectively

• Demonstrates a positive attitude towards work and the provision of excellent customer service * Self-motivated and able to work under pressure

• Demonstrates a flexible and innovative approach to problem solving

• Proactive and creative in the prevention of homelessness and resolving complex problems

This role is borough-based so access to a vehicle or the ability to use public transport is essential. The postholder should expect to be office based a minimum of 3 days per week., As a public authority, we must ensure that members of staff in public-facing roles are able to speak fluent English. This means that they must have a command of spoken English, with confidence and accuracy, sufficient for the effective performance of their role. This requirement does not refer to any particular English language qualifications, regional or international accents, dialects, speech impediments or the tone of conversations. It does not require staff to speak only in English.

• Satisfactory employment references and CIFAS identity checks;

• Satisfactory declaration of interest;

• This role is subject to safer recruitment practices as it involves work with vulnerable adults;

• Satisfactory DBS check

To support the above and reduce the risk of bias in its recruitment activities, the council is operating an anonymous shortlisting process, which hides personal information that can identify individuals until their application has been considered for shortlisting. The council also operates a scheme whereby, for jobs graded up to and including scale SO2, internal candidates are considered first. This includes those candidates who self-identify as having a disability for the purposes of the Disability Confident scheme. For more information, please refer to our recruitment and selection policy.

We are keen to support employees to balance their working life with other commitments. Therefore, wherever possible, we will consider working arrangements that suit an individual’s personal circumstances whilst still meeting the needs of the Council. If you would like to discuss the possible flexible working options that might be applicable to this role, please contact the person named below or feel free to discuss this during your interview.

For more information on the benefits of working for the Council, please visit .

Contact Information:

If you have any questions about this vacancy or the application process, please contact Phil Taylor, Interim Head of Prevention and Assessment at

If you have any technical issues when trying to apply for this post, please contact our Recruitment Team via email at .

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