Housing Advice Worker Jobs in Coventry, West Midlands
Central England Law Centre (CELC) provides a vital service to clients across Coventry and Birmingham, providing support for all aspects of housing law through a team of dedicated solicitors, caseworkers, paralegals and support workers.
This is an exciting opportunity for an experienced caseworker or solicitor to join the team, supporting our clients across Birmingham in the delivery of casework through the Law Centre’s Legal Aid contract.
The successful candidate will be subject to a basic DBS check.
Responsibilities
With responsibility for a caseload of clients across Birmingham, the successful candidate will:
- Advise clients on all aspects of housing law through face-to-face and telephone appointments
- Undertake casework and represent clients at court as appropriate
- Liaise with the Legal Aid Agency in respect of funding applications and claims
- Complete public funding forms via CCMS and paper applications where appropriate
- Promptly cost and bill closed cases in order to meet individual and team targets
Person Specification
- A solicitor or caseworker with proven experience of the delivery of casework through a legal aid contract
- A demonstrable commitment to social justice
- The ability to work sympathetically and effectively with a wide variety of clients
- Experience of advocating for clients in court and with other agencies
- Demonstrable knowledge and understanding of legal aid eligibility requirements and legal aid applications
About CELC:
A fairer, more just society in which an understanding of rights and their power is embedded within communities.
Central England Law Centre is the UK’s largest Law Centre. Our size enables us to provide legal expertise across eight different areas of social welfare law including: discrimination; employment; health and social care; housing; immigration and asylum; public law; and welfare benefits. This means that we can offer services that can address all of the interconnected problems people face in their everyday lives.
Our services are rooted in the communities we serve and we are an organisation that uses its legal expertise to improve the lives of those who are often vulnerable and socially excluded due to poverty, illness or disability.
What we offer:
- 37-hour working week;
- Flexible working hours and a hybrid working arrangement;
- 28 days holiday (rising by 1 day per year of service to 35 days after 5 years of service) plus 8 statutory days;
- Pension scheme membership;
- Access to an employee assistance programme;
Closing date: 12pm on the 15th May 2024
Interviews will be held in week commencing: 20th or 27th May 2024
This is an exciting opportunity to work as a refuge worker within a refuge service, supporting women and their children fleeing domestic abuse. Your responsibilities will include supporting and advocating for women and children, taking part in the on-call rota, managing day to day running of the refuge; health & safety, safeguarding and supporting the service and deputy manager.
Please note that this post is restricted to women due to the nature of the role. The Occupational Requirement under Schedule 9 (part 1) of the Equality Act 2010 applies. As part of this role, you will be required to participate in an out-of-hours on call rota. An enhanced DBS will also be required for the successful applicant.
The client requests no contact from agencies or media sales.
This is an exciting opportunity to work as a refuge worker within a refuge service, supporting women and their children fleeing domestic abuse. Your responsibilities will include supporting and advocating for women and children, taking part in the on-call rota, managing day to day running of the refuge; health & safety, safeguarding and supporting the service and deputy manager.
Please note that this post is restricted to women due to the nature of the role. The Occupational Requirement under Schedule 9 (part 1) of the Equality Act 2010 applies. As part of this role, you will be required to participate in an out-of-hours on call rota. An enhanced DBS will also be required for the successful applicant.
The client requests no contact from agencies or media sales.
Forensic Intensive Recovery Support Team (FIRST) Peer Mentor Advert
Fixed term contract until 31st March 2026 – linked to funding
Full time – 37.5 hours per week
Salary Grade 1.1 - £24,102 per annum
Have you experienced mental health issues? Are you an ex-offender? Would you like to use your experience to help others turn their lives around? We have a paid vacancy for someone to join us as a Peer Mentor and gain experience working with a leading provider of homelessness and housing advice and support while inspiring and motivating others in their own recovery.
About the Peer Mentor Service
Shelter is delivering a Peer Mentor Service in partnership with the Forensic Intensive Recovery Support Team (FIRST) within Birmingham and Solihull’s Mental Health Foundation Trust. The FIRST service is a comprehensive recovery focussed multi-disciplinary team addressing the individual needs of our service users through tailored packages of care. It includes Consultant Psychiatrists, Psychologists, Advanced Nurse Practitioners, Community Psychiatric Nurses, Occupational Therapists, Support Workers, Peer Mentors, Substance Use workers and Social Workers. Each service user will have an allocated Care Coordinator and Responsible Clinician who monitor, and review care and support needs and interventions.
The Peer Mentor role will engage with clients on the ward and within the community - with a primary focus on supporting clients with their transition away from staying on the ward to living in the community. The Peer Mentor service’s aim is to help people with multiple and complex needs to enhance the support available through the FIRST Pathway.
About Shelter
A home is a fundamental human need, as essential as education or healthcare. Yet millions of people across Britain struggle on a daily basis with homelessness, bad housing conditions, soaring rents, discrimination and the threat of eviction. So, we are striving for change, with individuals, in communities, across society, and leading the way to a safe home. We need ambitious, best-in-class individuals who are passionate about our cause to join us at this exciting time. This is your chance to play a part in the fundamental change we are striving to achieve.
At Shelter we are united by our purpose to defend the right to a safe home. Our enemy is the social injustice at the core of the escalating housing emergency. We believe that to win that fight, we must be representative of the people we are here to help and those who support our movement for change. In all our people decisions, we take pride in being inclusive, fair, equitable and transparent.
We have committed to combat racism both within and outside Shelter and welcome you on our journey to becoming a truly anti-racist organisation.
About the role
As a Peer Mentor, you'll support people with mental health concerns who are looking to create sustainable lives in the community by improving engagement with services with a view to sustaining wellbeing and reducing reoffending. Your own experiences will be invaluable as you engage with and motivate individuals to set goals around their recovery. This will include building a relationship of trust with individuals and understanding the importance of empowering them to make their own choices. Along the way, you will have the opportunity to access personal support to develop new skills and improve your self-confidence to do the job.
We are happy to talk about flexible working, personal growth, and to promote a workplace where you can be yourself and achieve success based only on your merit.
About you
We’re looking for people who have had mental health issues, are ex-offenders or who have been through the criminal justice system. Lived Experience of homelessness and substance use is useful but not essential. You’ll need to have accessed support services, have an understanding of how these experiences have affected you and be able to tap into these experiences to identify gaps in services and barriers to recovery and how things can be improved. You’ll need to have been stable for at least 18 months and be willing to share details of your successful journey with others to help them. You will be looking to go into a career supporting vulnerable adults and this will be a great opportunity to gain experience. Basic computer skills will be needed, as well as the interest to develop and learn new skills.
*Offers of employment are subject to Risk Assessment, Enhanced DBS, Proof of Right to work and two references being satisfactory to Shelter.
*Evidence of/ or willingness to receive the below vaccinations are a requirement of this post:
· Tetanus
· Diphtheria
· Polio
· MMR
Benefits
We offer a wide range of benefits, including 30 days of annual leave (pro rata), enhanced family friendly policies, childcare vouchers, pension and interest free travel loans. Our employees also have access to a tenancy deposit loan, cycle to work scheme and an employee assistance programme.
Shelter helps millions of people every year struggling with bad housing or homelessness through our advice, support and legal services. And we campaign to make sure that, one day, no one will have to turn to us for help. We're here so no one has to fight bad housing or homelessness on their own.
If anyone would like further information about this position, Shelter in partnership with FIRST will be holding an information session on 29th April at 11.00 am. To register your interest please see details on the job advert on Shelter's website.
Apply to be part of an exciting initiative and be the change you want to see in society.
Safeguarding is everyone's business. Shelter is committed to protecting the health, wellbeing and human rights of those we support, and enabling them to live free from harm, abuse and neglect. All our staff will be expected to observe professional standards of behaviour and conduct their work in line with our Safeguarding Policies.
Shelter does not accept unsolicited CVs from external recruitment agencies nor accept the fees associated with them.
The client requests no contact from agencies or media sales.
About us:
Action for M.E. is the only charity in the UK providing direct support including healthcare to children and adults with M.E.. We provide vital support services, campaign for change and invest in ground-breaking research to help put an end to the ignorance, injustice and neglect experienced by people with M.E.
Opportunity:
Having been paused to new referrals, Action for M.E.’s free, independent, Adults Advocacy service will soon be re-opening. It’s one of our range of free Support Services that work with adults, young people, and/or families living with M.E. We support colleagues across the team to take part in and share reflective practice, self-care, peer-support and training.
Our Adults Advocacy service offers non-statutory, single-issue, instructed advocacy for adults with a confirmed diagnosis of M.E. We encourage self-advocacy where possible, though many of our clients are too severely affected by M.E. to be able to take undertake this.
As an Adults Advocate, you will manage a caseload of clients, as well as inputting and contributing to the triage process along with your Advocacy colleagues. You will meet with clients by phone, email, Zoom and/or SMS; we can also facilitate communication by post if this is required. We are not able to offer home visits or face to face meetings.
What we can offer you:
We offer fully remote and flexible working with generous annual leave (30 days plus bank holidays, pro rata). The wellbeing of our staff is important to us, we offer a range of benefits to employees including (but not limited to) access to free counselling and voluntary wellbeing weekday sessions, examples of recent sessions include guided group meditations and a book club.
To view the full job description, download the job pack, and apply for this role, please visit our Recruitee site (please note that we only accept applications via Recruitee; any application sent directly to an Action for M.E. mailbox will not be considered).
Should you have any questions about the role, or require any reasonable adjustments to the recruitment process, please don’t hesitate to contact our recruitment team, details of how to do this are contained in the application pack, "how to apply" section.
The client requests no contact from agencies or media sales.