Reading Specialist ( DPS ) in Basildon

The Role

Our Reading Support Specialist here at PeoplePlus work collaboratively with Education, Industries and the wider prison to provide support to prisoners with reading needs. Their role is to promote an effective and inclusive learning environment, providing support to learners over the course of the working week and screening prisoners with low level reading ability. This is a fixed term position for 22 months.

As a successful Reading Support Specialist, you will be a passionate, creative, and empathetic towards our learners and prisoners and be able to offer knowledge and guidance and support to prisoners with reading needs including those with neurodiverse needs and disabilities.

Key Responsibilities include:

• To conduct reading screeners with prisoners.
• To develop and implement reading interventions for individuals or groups of prisoners using That Reading Thing or equivalent phonics intervention programs.
• Write and update reading profiles for all prisoners that complete a reading screener and share reading information through Virtual Campus (VC2).
• Track and report on reading progress of prisoners monthly following screening, intervention and re-screening.
• Develop resources to help support prisoners with low level reading ability.
• Collaborate with education and prison colleagues to ensure a holistic approach in supporting prisoners with emerging reading needs.
• Deliver creative support for emerging readers to enable prisoners to make progress and be inspired to read. This may include setting up an emergent reading group.
• Assist management in promoting a reading for pleasure culture within the prison community.
• Lead on reading initiatives within the wider prison.
• Deliver training and guidance to staff in relation to reading and phonics.
• Utilise technology to promote reading strategies via digital technology such as Way-Out TV which will support emergent readers.
• Further develop your knowledge with reading by engaging with CPD provided by PeoplePlus and other agencies.
• Work with a range of partnership with reading partners such as Shannon Trust.
• Work with onsite libraries and other relevant partners to develop a whole prison approach to promote reading using a range of strategies including, but not limited to, book clubs, writers in residence, storybook fathers etc.
• Liaising with Peer Support Workers including but not limited to Shannon Trust Mentors, Prisoner information Desk (PID) workers, CIAG orderlies and Library orderlies to further promote reading in prison.
• Creating a monthly newsletter to promote reading across the prison recognising good practice and positive outcomes. This should include involvement and contributions from the Governor and senior leadership team in each prison.
• Working in collaboration with the Education Department and Neurodiversity Leads to support learners who have specific learning needs, through a Trauma Informed approach.
• Developing projects in collaboration with wider departments including the Gym and Education departments to further promote reading through discrete embedded approaches such as sports or educational events.
• Deliver regular training for prison mentors and quality assure the delivery of the support mentors give to prisoners who need support.
• Meet with the group of prison mentors regularly to gain feedback on their support and ensure their training is maintained.
• Promote community values with learners which demonstrates tolerance, community, and respect.
• Collaboratively manage the behaviour of the learners, promoting and maintaining a safe and secure learning environment.
• To help support the writing of the whole establishment reading strategy and drive this across each establishment.
• Contractual KPIs for success and performance to be met.
• Prison based roles are 100% site based, with the expectation of prisoner face to face contact.

For full details of the role and the person specification please review the job description or If you would like to speak to the recruitment team before you apply, please email any questions to and one of the team will come back to you. If you wish to apply, please ensure this is done via the apply now button. Applications cannot be accepted via email. Please include your current salary and desired salary as part of your application when prompted as salaries above band may be considered, dependent on prior skills and experience.

Who We Are

Here at People Plus, we make a positive difference to peoples lives every single day. We use our experience to support hundreds of thousands of people each year. Our committed teams work across Britain to deliver a range of public services, including employment support, skills training, prison education, starting a business, and support to help employers grow.

To put it simply, we:

• Support people to find and keep jobs
• Help people to set up their own businesses
• Deliver skills training to further peoples careers
• Work with employers to build a skilled and happy workforce
• Rehabilitate people with convictions
• Tackle the root causes of offending
• Support carers

We are extremely proud to be a Gold accredited Investors in People organisation. This demonstrates our commitment to creating the very best environment and culture for our colleagues to succeed and thrive. We are committed to transforming the lives of people with convictions through our work in prisons. Our services have been designed to tackle the underlying causes of offending behaviour so people can make positive changes to their lives.

With more than 500 people working to support people with convictions in custody and in the community, we bring passion, experience and innovation to public sector rehabilitation services. We also work with specialist partner organisations to help people move away from their past and look forward to a brighter future. All of our services are designed in partnership with the people who were trying to help and away from our direct work with people serving their sentences, were working hard to change attitudes towards people who can often be tarnished unfairly following criminal convictions.

Our Social Recruitment Framework brings together organisations to tackle any pre-conceived ideas about hiring people who have previously been involved in crime. We also work with employers on the Ban the Box initiative to support fair and equal recruitment processes and have engaged industry to influence our employer-led curriculum delivered to our learners.