Housing Night Worker

37.5 hours per week / permanent / working onsite on a seven-day rolling rota, including evenings, weekends and bank holidays on a four-on-four off shift pattern.

Our mission is to help children and young people have a fair chance to be who they want to be. We do this by providing a safe home, increasing life skills and self-confidence, and improving emotional wellbeing and mental health.

Horsham Y Centre provides 24-hour supported housing services offering medium levels of housing-related support for young people aged 16-25 with 50 bedspaces and shared communal facilities. We adopt a trauma informed and psychologically informed approach to supporting our residents to help them build essential life skills, identify their goals and work towards aspirations so that they can move on to enjoy fully independent futures. We have a dedicated team of Support Workers, Night Workers and additional Bank Workers who provide support, guidance, and signposting around areas such as housing, budgeting, living skills, jobs, relationship building and wellbeing. Situated in the middle of Horsham, the service has strong links with and contributes to the local community.

Main areas of responsibilities are:

• Safety and security
  • Provide a friendly and professional front-of-house welcome to residents, visitors and staff, and ensure the building is safe, secure quiet and welcoming.
  • Maximise the wellbeing of residents and visitors by ensuring adherence to health and safety protocols and house rules, all within the terms of tenancy agreements.
  • Assess and monitor the risks presented by residents to ensure they can keep themselves safe and, where possible, continue their development.
  • Record all incidents and accidents and share appropriately with the wider team, your manager and, if necessary, the central safeguarding team.
• Engagement with residents
  • Welcome residents home and provide informal and responsive support so they can articulate their aspirations and ambitions and acquire the skills they need to live independent and fulfilling lives.
  • Ensure resident’s views, aspirations, concerns, and ideas are sought so they can play an active role in influencing the services they receive.
  • Proactively promote the services on offer and ensure residents are encouraged to engage with those services.
  • Contribute to, or support, evening groupwork activities so that residents can access tailored solutions that meet their needs, wishes and aspirations.
• Administration and housekeeping
  • Undertake tasks as directed, including but not limited to: inputting data, assessments, reviews, case notes onto our client database and entering new residents details/closing ex-resident records.
  • Completing health and safety/compliance checks, and recording estate inspectors and room checks.
  • Adding maintenance requests to our property services system.
• General
  • Work as part of a team, on a rota four on four off shift pattern, alongside another Housing Night Worker, ensuring young people at the service have non-judgemental, objective support at night, along with taking responsibility for personal safety during periods of lone working.
  • Contribute to a great working environment, with a calm, yet assertive manner, being able to handle potentially difficult situations.
  • Participate in relevant continuing professional development and utilise Reflective Practice Supervision as part of leading psychologically informed practice.

There will be times when lone working will be a requirement for this role, but you will get to know the team and service, along with an induction and training prior to starting on a rota.

If you’re enthusiastic about this opportunity but your experience doesn’t align perfectly with every requirement, we encourage you to apply anyway and demonstrate how your experience is transferrable. You may be just the right candidate. This is a dynamic and varied role; you will be passionate about being involved in the support and growth of young people.

Experience and knowledge

• Experience of working in a customer facing environment, remaining calm and solution-focused when dealing with challenging behaviour.
• Basic understanding of the support needs of young people and/or adults at risks.
• Understanding of the impact of trauma on others, and the ability to work with a strengths-based approach with people who may be in distress.
• Demonstrated confidence and competence in recording notes/actions in service log, incident forms and Health and Safety check lists.
• Basic knowledge of good safeguarding procedures in relation to young people and/or vulnerable adults, and the ability to maintain professional boundaries (training provided).

Skills and abilities

• Ability to communicate clearly both verbally and in writing for appropriate record keeping (vital for handover to colleagues working day shifts).
• Good interpersonal skills and ability to build and maintain strong relationships.
• Ability to work autonomously, use own initiative, and also be part of a team.
• IT skills, including proficiency in MS Office 365 package, as well as health and safety and client management systems (training on YMCA DLG systems provided).
• Ability to de-escalate volatile situations and manage challenging behaviour appropriately.

If you would like any further information or an informal discussion about this post, please contact David.Martin@ymcadlg.org. Should you require any assistance with our application process, please email us at Recruitment@ymcadlg.org.

CLOSING DATE: Friday 25 July 2025 at midnight. We reserve the right to close this advert early if a successful candidate is found, so please submit your application as soon as possible.

Successful candidates will already have the right to live and work in the UK without restrictions. We are unable to offer visa sponsorship for this role.

An inclusive workplace

We are committed to policies and practices of equity, diversity, and inclusion and to supporting our people to make sure our culture is consistent with this commitment.

Accessibility

If you require assistance or have questions regarding the application process, please do contact us.

YMCA DLG requires all staff and volunteers to be committed to safeguarding and promoting the welfare of children and young people, and to respond proactively to safeguarding concerns. Successful applicants are required to undertake an Enhanced DBS (including the Children’s and Adults’ barred lists) check, along with a reference and background check carried out by a third-party service provider.