Caseworker

Do you have extensive experience and understanding of working with children, young people and/or vulnerable adults – including the crucial ability to build and maintain trusting relationships with young people and parents/carers who may have had previous negative experiences of services? If so, St Giles has the ideal challenge for you: as a Caseworker on our pioneering SOS project. Here we work with both victims and perpetrators of serious youth violence and other gang related offences, helping clients to be safe, move away from offending and take positive choices.

About St Giles Trust: An ambitious, well-established charity that helps people facing adversity to find jobs, homes and the right support they need. Central to our ethos is our belief that people with first-hand experience of successfully overcoming issues such as an offending background, homelessness, addictions and gang involvement, hold the key to positive change in others.

About this key role: Your role will be to provide young person centred holistic support – including everything from helping clients to understand their own behaviour and its consequences, and promoting change, to helping clients’ families to support them and providing practical help with attending appointments, education, training and employment options, housing, benefits, debt and other aspects of day-to-day living. Working flexibly within the community and within identified office spaces within London (opportunities for home working will be minimal within this role), you’ll be building effective and engaging relationships with young people involved in or at risk of being involved in the criminal justice system, with the aim of improving their life chances. You’ll conduct robust risk assessments and strengths-based needs assessments, with safeguarding as the priority, and ensure that all young people work towards an agreed support plan which is regularly reviewed and adapted. You’ll also build effective relationships with agencies providing services to the client group, and enable clients to engage in positive activity within the community (e.g. boxing, football, etc).

What we are looking for:

• Significant experience of working with children, young people and/or vulnerable adults and delivering interventions that have had a positive impact – preferably in a health and wellbeing context and/or on an offender led support project.
• Experience of providing support, advice and advocacy, with the ability to assess clients’ needs.
• Extensive experience of managing complex safeguarding issues with children, young people and adults who are at risk of violence or exploitation, whilst working alone.
• Understanding of the physical, social, emotional and developmental needs of children and young people, their specific needs as they transition to legal adulthood, and the issues they face, e.g. exploitation, victimisation, offending, school exclusion, unemployment, trauma.
• Extensive knowledge of the impact of context – with a clear understanding of best practice around contextual safeguarding and those experiencing harm outside the home.
• Knowledge of trauma-informed practice in the context of working with children, young people and parents/carers impacted by violence and exploitation, and of how trauma –including from their own lives – can impact on how practitioners manage cases.
• Working knowledge of child protection and safeguarding legislation/policy, with experience of providing support, advice and advocacy to staff with a safeguarding responsibility.
• Understanding of the importance of good quality case recording quality assurance principles.
• Ability to use electronic case management systems to record all aspects of the role, including action plans, outcomes and session data on a day-to-day basis.
• Recognition of the importance of resilience in coping with the emotional demands of the role and demonstrable experience of managing your own wellbeing.
• Relevant qualification to a good standard or equivalent experience – ideally with relevant accredited training such as safeguarding, counselling or mental health first aid.

As an organisation that works with children and adults at risk we are committed to safeguarding, protecting and promoting the safety of our clients and successful applicants will require an Enhanced Child and Adult with Child Barred DBS Check. We actively encourage people with personal experience of the issues facing this client group to apply for this role.

In return, you can expect a competitive salary, generous leave allowance, staff pension, flexible working, a mentoring programme, an advice and counselling service, clinical therapist sessions, life insurance (4 x annual salary), duvet days, season ticket loan, employee perks programme, eye care voucher and much more. We are an equity and inclusion confident employer. We welcome all applications and we particularly encourage applications from people of the global majority (black, brown, multi-heritage) and those who identify as disabled, neuroexpansive, neurodiverse, with any protected characteristics and/or social barriers or challenges. We value the empowering and informative impact that all lived experiences and diversity of thought can offer the organisation. St Giles will guarantee to interview all disabled applicants who meet the minimum criteria set out in the Job Description for the vacancy.