Women's Support Centre Manager

Charity no: 1118727. Company no: 5581944.

2024

Bridges to Health Manager

Welcome!

Dear Applicant,

Women in Prison is the only national charity focused on women in the criminal justice sector, we are women-led and know the importance of ensuring we have a clear gendered approach in all that we do. Our influencing potential and campaigning voice are substantial. We are currently in our 40th year of supporting women impacted by the criminal justice system. We work with women who are at risk of, or being, harmed by the systems that are meant to protect us. At Women in Prison, we are passionate, ambitious, and grounded in the reality of women’s lives. We are proud of our roots as a feminist grassroots organisation, and we have grown from strength to strength since the 1980s, delivering services to women and campaigning for change. We exist to support women facing multiple marginalisation and exclusion, who have been let down, and their rights denied. We believe that prison doesn’t work, and we want to see an end to the harmful imprisonment of women in England and Wales.

This is a very exciting time in Women in Prison. As a deeply value-led organisation, we know that our recently agreed set of values represents the unique nature of our organisation, and also need to hold us to account for how we work in an unpredictable future. Our new vision and purpose will guide us as we build a strategy during 2024 to be implemented from 2025. We know we want to build more co-production; deeper support to women who are disproportionately affected by the system through an intersectional lens; greater connection between the women we support and the influencing we do; an increased focus on alternatives to the system and a stronger focus on preventing women being caught up in the system. If you are excited by our purpose, and the breadth of what this role could offer to you, we would love to hear from you. I look forward to meeting you.

Sonya Ruparel, Chief Executive

About Women in Prison

Women in Prison is a national, women-led, feminist organisation. We deliver front line support to women harmed by the criminal justice system, through our work in prisons, in the community and through the prison gate as they resettle back into their communities. We also campaign for systems change that addresses the root causes of offending, reduces the harmful impact of prison, and creates workable, community-based alternatives to imprisonment.

Job Description

Job Purpose:

This is an exciting opportunity to work on the continuous development and delivery of a specialist service working in partnership with Central Northwest London NHS Foundation Trust, providing enhanced support to women with mental and physical health needs preparing to leave prison and resettle back into the community. This project takes a trauma-informed, person-centred approach to support and works together with partner agencies to provide a bridge from prison to the community.

This post provides operational management of this project across the three women’s prisons in Surrey HMP Bronzefield, HMP Send and HMP Downview and a community service delivery area of London and the South-East of England, ensuring quality standards are consistently met, staff are effectively managed, partnerships are maintained and contract KPIs are delivered.

Duties and Key Responsibilities:

Service Delivery

1. Provide operational management of the Bridges to Health service, ensuring high quality, trauma-informed, person-centred support is delivered to women impacted by the criminal justice system.
2. Identify opportunities for service development and innovation, both within the three prisons and the community and take a responsive and flexible approach to the changing needs of women impacted by the criminal justice system, the prisons and partner agencies.
3. Manage all service safeguarding concerns and incidents, ensuring compliance with Women in Prison (WIP), prison and local authority policies and procedures.
4. Manage all new referrals as they come in via the team inbox and lead a weekly referral meeting with the team to discuss and allocate new referrals.
5. Represent the needs and experiences of women affected by the criminal justice system with external policymakers and agencies, providing specific knowledge and expertise relating to the impact of imprisonment upon women.

Management of Staff

1. Demonstrate to staff that they are valued by WIP, foster good working relationships within staff teams, and build a fair and open management culture.
2. Provide regular, structured line management support to direct reports. In-line with WIP policies and procedures this includes:

1. Monthly Supervision
2. Monthly Case Auditing
3. Case Management and Reflective Practice opportunities
4. Weekly Team Referral Meetings
5. Team training and development opportunities

Client Care

1. Ensure that all client work within the service meets quality standards, complies with WIPs policies and procedures and is delivered in line with WIPs core values.
2. Provide regular, structured case management support to staff providing space to reflect and advise on innovative 1:1 interventions.
3. Act as a source of specialist advice to staff regarding complex issues that might arise from their work with clients.
4. Manage safeguarding concerns and incidents, ensuring compliance with WIPs policies and procedures, compliance with prisons Safer Custody procedures and local authority procedures.

Communication

1. Champion the core values of WIP, including social justice and feminism in all internal and external communications, articulating their importance to the work we do.
2. Network and raise the profile of the Bridges to Health service, through building effective partnerships and referral pathways with a particular focus on the Surrey women’s prisons, mental health in-reach and primary care teams, prison offender management and resettlement teams and partner agencies in the community, including probation.
3. Represent the Bridges to Health service at quarterly contract meetings and yearly CNWL stakeholder events, actively participating and disseminating information to colleagues.

Data Management

1. Ensure that all staff maintain accurate and confidential service user records, using WIPs case management system, as well as the NHS System One in compliance with WIP and CNWLs policies and procedures.
2. Produce monthly and quarterly monitoring and evaluation reports to CNWL in line with funder requirements.

General Responsibilities

1. Be flexible and carry out other associated duties as may arise, develop or be assigned in line with the broad remit of the position.
2. Maintain and improve competencies through continuous professional development. Abide by all organisational policies, codes of conduct and practices. Actively support and promote inclusion, diversity and equality of opportunity in the workplace. Treat confidentially any personal, private or sensitive information about service delivery, individual organisations, clients and staff.

Person Specification

Experience

1. Development, management and delivery of services supporting women with experiences of trauma and exclusion.
2. Design and delivery of services that actively include and meet the needs of people with a range of intersecting needs, including designing and delivering 1:1 and/or group interventions in a trauma-informed manner.
3. Experience of holistic multi-agency working to support clients, experience of delivering services in a needs-led manner and knowledge of inequalities and exclusion experienced by marginalised groups.
4. Producing complex monitoring and evaluation reports for funders and key stakeholders.
5. Working collaboratively with external agencies or partner organisations at a strategic level.
6. Managing staff and complex staffing situations.

Skills and Abilities

1. Effective leadership in a management role: leading, supervising, supporting and motivating.
2. Involve service users and/or beneficiaries in the development, delivery and evaluation of services.
3. Effective spoken and written communication skills which engage staff and stakeholders, including funders, encouraging understanding and participation.
4. Troubleshoot and problem solve difficult situations, and deal with them calmly, diplomatically, efficiently and effectively.
5. Maintain professional boundaries and confidential working practices and support a team to do this.
6. Reflect on own practice and identify areas for own professional development.
7. Effectively interact and positively communicate with a range of professionals in a variety of settings, including the ability to challenge when required.
8. Financial management skills necessary to deliver a project to budget.
9. Effective time management in order to meet competing priorities.
10. Fluent use of standard office equipment and information and communication technology.

Knowledge

1. Knowledge of best practice responses to meeting the needs of women with experience of trauma and impacted by the criminal justice system.
2. Understanding of diversity and inclusion and the principles of equal opportunities as they relate to both staff management and service provision.
3. Knowledge of imprisonment, the criminal justice system and community services, both statutory and voluntary which provide support to women and women impacted by the criminal justice system.
4. Knowledge of health issues relating to women involved in the criminal justice system.
5. Knowledge of key national and regional government policies and reports relating to women involved in the criminal justice system.
6. Extensive knowledge of monitoring and evaluation within a service delivery context.
7. Understanding of effective risk management and safeguarding procedures.

Education/Training/Qualifications

1. Evidence of recent continuing professional development in a professional area relevant to the post, for example management and leadership; quality systems; monitoring and evaluation; project management.

Other Requirements

1. A commitment to the values of asset-based empowerment, social justice and feminism which underpin all of the work undertaken by WIP.
2. Commitment to anti-discriminatory practice and equal opportunities.
3. An ability to apply awareness of diversity issues to all areas of work.
4. Able to travel around Surrey and across WIPs national services.

Terms And Conditions

Start date: 25th November 2024
Salary: £37,733, inclusive of London and South-East weighting
Location: Hybrid: 1-3 times a week as required at HMP Bronzefield, HMP Send, HMP Downview. The rest of the time spent working from home and/or the London Office (Shoreditch)

Working hours: Full time, 35 hours
Contract: Fixed maternity cover until 31st October 2025
Annual leave: 30 days plus statutory bank holidays (if full time). All WIP staff also receive an additional 3 days leave between Christmas and New Year.
Pension scheme: WIP provides an auto enrolment pension scheme with 5% contributions from the employer and 3% from the employee.

Applications close

Monday, 7th October 2024 at 9am
Interviews with Women in Prison: week commencing Monday, 14th October 2024

To apply: Send a CV and cover letter explaining how you meet the person specification (max 2 pages of A4) to (email). If you require reasonable adjustments to support you during the application process, please contact the HR team on (phone number). We are happy to invest in developing the right person, so you are welcome to apply even if your professional experience does not fully meet the job description or person specification. We particularly encourage applications from Black, Asian and minoritised women, and women who have personal experience of the criminal justice system.

In line with legal requirements and the nature of our work, this role:

1. Is restricted to women only as a genuine occupational requirement.
2. Requires the right to work in the UK.
3. Is subject to an Enhanced + Adult Barred List DBS check.
4. Is subject to HM Prison and Probation Service vetting (Enhanced Level 1 or Standard Plus).
5. Requires that the post holder is not automatically disqualified by (or can obtain a waiver from) the Charity Commission.

Equality, Diversity and Inclusion Policy

Our Principle Commitments: WIP is committed to building and valuing diverse teams and taking positive action to promote equality and challenge unfair and unlawful discrimination. We recognise that women may experience multiple and intersecting forms of discrimination based on their sex and additional, real or perceived, characteristics including age, disability, gender reassignment, marriage or civil partnership, pregnancy or maternity, race, religion, sexual orientation, social-economic background, immigration status, caring responsibilities, spent convictions or trade union membership. WIP works to tackle discrimination and the structural inequalities women experience. We are committed to embedding diversity and inclusion in all areas of our work, including recruitment, and aim to reflect the diversity and excellence of the women that we work with. 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 minoritised women and women who have lived experience of the criminal justice system.

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