Homeless Officer - Housing Needs Service - Triumph Consultants
What's involved with this role:
Temporary Homeless Officer - Housing Needs Service
Reference no: Wakefield 0009 5C0E / 1Pay Rate: £15.43 per hour PAYE
37 Monday to Friday, 08:30 - 17:30
This opening assignment is for 5-6 months
City: WAKEFIELD
Standard DBS disclosure required
The post is to work within the Service Wide Duty Team of the Housing Needs Service, dealing with new inquiries and approaches for homeless assistance both by telephone, and in person at the services office. Undertake homeless assessments, inquiry work and associated functions to enable the Council to meet its statutory responsibilities.Provide homeless prevention and housing options advice.
Key Responsibilities:
Work as part of a duty team to ensure that all homeless people and potentially homeless people have had their circumstances fully assessed.Explain to service users the process of making a homeless application, the reasons why detailed enquiries will be undertaken and possible outcomes and implications of such an assessment. To inform service users on how an outcome affects the way we can help them.
This will involve managing difficult and challenging situations in a professional and safe way.
Inform and explain to service users where appropriate to do so, any rights of occupancy that they have and how their decisions relating to occupying/giving up such accommodation may affect their current and future homeless applications.Interview homeless applicants and gather relevant information regarding their homelessness and to obtain permission from the applicant to make enquiries with third parties where it is necessary to do so.
Make relevant third party enquiries and obtain information to help establish eligibility, homelessness, priority need, intentionality and local connection. This could involve a variety of enquiries to private individuals, landlords, lenders, statutory and voluntary organisations.
Complete assessment forms accurately and legibly and update case notes to a standard which are capable of being used in homeless decision making and potentially court challenge.Provide service users with a full appraisal of their situation and to encourage them to consider all options available to them to obtain new accommodation or prevent losing their existing accommodation.
Prevent or delay homelessness by negotiating with existing and potential housing providers to allow the applicant to return to or move to accommodation.
Manage a caseload of homeless applications, ensuring that appropriate work is undertaken, recorded and passed to a manager for a case review or to undertake a decision within the timescales set.
Set up cases on the in-house case management system and update the systems in an accurate and timely manner.
Qualifications:
Level 3 qualifications (National Qualifications Framework in the UK) or able to demonstrate significant relevant experience.
Knowledge:
Good knowledge of homeless legislation, guidance and good practice.Good knowledge of homeless prevention techniques and strategies.
Good knowledge of accommodation options and services for homeless and vulnerable people within the district.
Knowledge of the social and financial costs of homelessness to individuals, the local authority and other relevant bodies.
Knowledge of Safeguarding adults and children.
Knowledge of equality and diversity.
Knowledge of data protection and freedom of information.
Good knowledge of support and risk assessment techniques.
Knowledge of local housing allocation policies.
Thorough understanding of the housing and support needs of homeless and vulnerable people.
Understanding of the district's choice based lettings scheme.
Experience:
Experience of working within homelessness, social housing or a housing related support environment in a voluntary or other appropriate setting.Experience of interviewing members of the public and liaising with other organisations.
Experience of working with vulnerable clients.
Experience in managing a caseload and keeping appropriate case notes and work based systems accurately updated.
Experience of managing service users’ expectations and challenging behaviour.
Experience of assessing support needs and risk assessment for vulnerable people.
Experience of working within policies and procedures and influencing change to new or existing practice by contributing to the development of new procedures.
Skills & Abilities:
Ability to communicate effectively with a range of individuals and organisations, including vulnerable people who may exhibit challenging behaviour.Ability to adapt communication styles and approaches to suit the situation, taking account of the needs of the audience.
Ability to negotiate and work assertively with potentially homeless people to ensure that they achieve a realistic understanding of their situation and the options available to them.
Ability to deal with and manage conflict effectively and safely.
Able to mediate and negotiate to obtain successful outcomes for service users in line with service objectives.
Ability to treat service users with respect and aim to provide the most effective service possible.
Ability to consider information making timely, well-judged decisions.
Ability to discuss and negotiate with accommodation providers to obtain information, prevent homelessness/improve housing opportunities for those in housing need and /or to use as part of homeless enquiry work.
Ability to record clear and legible written case notes and also maintain accurate, clear and timely case notes within in house case recording systems.
Ability to be self-motivated and be able to organise own workload, use own initiative with the minimum of daily supervision
Ability to accurately analyse information making timely, well-judged decisions. Can work to overcome barriers in order to achieve a successful outcome.
Ability to take responsibility for gaining new skills, knowledge and experience and builds on these pursuing goals and objectives energetically.
Confident and effective users of IT applications including word processing, excel spreadsheets, email and internet as well as in house housing management systems.
Please quote the Job Title & Vacancy Reference No. in your application, or we will be unable to match your CV to the role being applied for.
Unless the DBS requirement stated above is for a Basic Disclosure, your DBS must be either through us or be accompanied by a subscription to the DBS updating service.
Clients are generally looking for candidates who are local to, or who can commute easily to the place of work. It will help your application if your CV states, in broad terms, where you reside – there is no need for a full address.
Please feel free to apply to us directly via jobs@tclrec.com by quoting the job reference and exact job title.
To help speed up the process of uploading your CV to the client we would ask that you send us your CV in Word format (or equivalent) if possible, not as a PDF.
If you are successful in securing this role, please note that for the entire duration of this contract, regardless of extension, you will be working at the PAYE rate that has been advertised. For absolute clarity, we only work on a PAYE basis, rather than umbrella pay terms.We do not offer Ltd/umbrella or outside IR35 rates. If you wish to understand PAYE vs Umbrella more, please let us know and we can send you some additional information for clarity.
Due to the number of CVs being sent to us under current market conditions, unfortunately we cannot respond to all applications. If you have not heard from us within 3 working days please assume that you have not been shortlisted on this occasion.We will, however, be very happy to receive future applications from you for other roles.
ALD1
Job Ref: Wakefield 0009 5C0E / 1
Anticipated Length of Assignment: Unless otherwise stated (we do carry the occasional permanent vacancy) all of our roles are technically temporary, though opening assignments can be and often are, extended by clients on a longer term basis and can sometimes become permanent.
Please do try to resist contacting us with requests for progress updates.
We really do read every CV sent to us. All applications will be acknowledged by a human, not a robot, provided the job remains live and provided your CV meets the “Essential Requirements” listed.
Please note that we do our level best to take down ads as soon as roles have been filled. We are not in the business of harvesting CVs.
Important: We will interpret your application as being permission to submit your CV to this role (with the right to represent you) unless you advise us to the contrary.