Advocacy Jobs

PLACE OF WORK: Various locations around Liverpool

Citizens Advice, in partnership with The Trussell Trust, have been running the Help through Hardship Helpline (formerly the Trussell Trust Foodbank helpline) for over 3 years. The helpline has been highly successful in reaching those clients most in need. Yearly Citizens Advice Help Through Hardship line has answered nearly 57,000 calls, helped feed over 70,000 people and recorded £13 million in expected financial gains for clients.

The Helpline is now being extended to local Citizens Advice offices and we're looking for new advisers to join our team in Liverpool who will provide information and advice on the issues clients are facing and help them access foodbank vouchers.

The successful candidate will provide generalist advice in a wide range of enquiry areas such as benefits, housing and employment. You will provide telephone advice within the working hours of the service and work with the on-site supervisor to support a team of volunteers.

Applicants would need to demonstrate excellent communication skills, be confident, motivated and have some experience in giving advice in relation to benefit entitlement and calculations.

As well as a competitive salary CAL also provides access to:

• Interest free travel loans
• Generous annual leave of 27 days plus bank holidays (with an additional day per year after 4 years' service up to a maximum of 32 days plus bank holidays)
• Employee Assistance Programme
• Pension Scheme
• Cycle to Work Scheme
• Lifestyles Gym Membership (20% corporate discount)
• Enhanced maternity, paternity and adoption leave pay

About Citizens Advice Liverpool

The first Citizens Advice opened in Liverpool on 4th September 1939, established in the aftermath of the first world war and provided, amongst other initiatives, a casework service for families in need.

Since then, we have continued to grow as a frontline service, finding innovative solutions to the advice needs of our community through free, confidential and independent advice and information services.

Citizens Advice Liverpool is a charity, dependent on a workforce of paid staff and over 120 trained volunteers. We operate over four permanent sites (Belle Vale, Garston, Walton & Wavertree) and over 30 outreach locations in the city, which we are continually reviewing to ensure we are reaching the people most in need of our services. We have also developed a mobile phone app which acts as a single point of access for Citizens Advice in Liverpool, showing where to find advice in real time, access to self-help information, and telephone, WhatsApp, email & webchat advice.

We are a member of "National Citizens Advice", which provides the extensive information system we use to advise clients and sets standards for advice, training, equal opportunities and accessibility in our offices.

We receive funding from Liverpool City Council; which helps support our generalist advice service which gives advice on a wide range of subjects such as; benefits, work, debt & money, consumer, family, housing, law & courts, immigration and health. We also receive funding from other major contributors which helps run our specialist advice projects.

Ref SWS-241

Are you a proactive, compassionate and collaborative individual with a proven record of working and engaging positively with females and/or young people who are/or are at risk of offending, or other vulnerable groups?  Do you have experience of providing support, advice and advocacy and the ability to assess a client’s needs?

If so, St Giles Trust is looking for a highly motivated Youth Engagement Outreach Worker to join our Young Women and Girls Outreach Service, which takes provision onto the streets of Scarborough to engage with ‘hard to reach’ young women and girls.  This will involve building trusted relationships and offering person-centred support to each client to help them to be safe, move away from offending/anti-social behaviours 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

Our successful candidate will be expected to produce individual support plans and risk management plans for those we will be providing ongoing support to, and to promote inter-agency collaboration in the support process, ensuring you include appropriate agencies in the delivery of the service.  We will also rely on you to develop and maintain effective relationships with partner agencies, including Early Help and Youth Justice teams, and Community Safety partners, while also supporting individuals to access and engage with support agencies.

Delivering a holistic support service, working independently or with colleagues as the situation dictates, is also a key element of this role, which will involve providing a support service that will include confidence building and self-awareness along with interventions aimed at preventing criminal and sexual exploitation, grooming, violence, sharing inappropriate media content.

What we are looking for

• Has personal experience of the criminal justice system, served a prison sentence, or still be serving a prison sentence in a prison within reach of Scarborough
• Experience negotiating with partner agencies to establish links to further aims of the project
• Experience of engaging successfully with challenging people
• To have a relevant youth work qualification or equivalent experience
• A sound knowledge of local support services that may be applicable to young people
• An understanding of the need to use support plans
• Excellent IT, relationship-building and communication skills, both verbal and written. 

In return, you can expect a competitive salary, generous leave allowance, staff pension, flexible working, a mentoring programme, an advice and counselling service, 4x Group Life Insurance, season ticket loan, eyecare scheme and much more.

As an equity and inclusive employer, we welcome all applications, but we would particularly welcome applications from Global Majority People (Black, Asian, Brown, Dual Heritage), those living with a disability, those from a neurodiverse group, or have another protected characteristic. We value the positive impact and diversity that your lived experience can bring to our organisation.

As an organisation that works with children and adults at risk we are committed to safeguarding, protecting and promoting the safety of our clients. Successful applicants must therefore submit an Enhanced Adult and Child Workforce with Child barred list DBS Check.

To apply please visit our website via the apply button. 

Closing date: 19 April 2024. 11:45pm 

Role Profile

This is an opportunity for you to join an established charity that has an excellent reputation locally as a trusted partner and as a great place to work. You’ll be a part of a small, but committed team with big ambitions that works cohesively and effectively together to get things done. You will provide generalist level advice and casework focused on welfare benefits, housing and energy as well as offering non-monetary debt advice about priority debts and budgeting.

You’ll help people to understand their rights and responsibilities by exploring their problems in depth. You'll proactively encourage clients to take responsibility for completing actions to resolve problems themselves. Taking responsibility for cases and advocating on behalf of clients where appropriate.

You’ll work closely with our key partners across North Lincolnshire within the statutory and voluntary and community sectors and ensure clients receive a good quality and holistic service that supports individuals to remove the financial and psychological barriers to achieving positive outcomes and build resilience for the future.

This role is offered both on a trainee and a qualified basis. For the trainee position we’re not necessarily looking for someone who has previous experience working within the advice sector, as long as you’re empathetic and able to provide person-centred support in a non-judgemental way we can provide full training.

You’ll really be able to make the role your own. You’ll be a part of a small, but committed team with big ambitions that works cohesively and effectively together to get things done. You'll be an important and valued member of the team and, with the support of Citizens Advice North Lincolnshire, will be responsible for ensuring people focused outcomes are met in a pressurised environment.

What we offer our staff

We provide an employee assistance scheme managed by LifeWorks. Benefits include:

• 24/7 - 365 telephone helpline
• LifeWorks online support website
• LifeWorks app
• 6 sessions of face to face counselling per issue – unlimited issues per annum
• Employee legal helpline
• Consulting services – financial, debt advice, housing, relocation, parenting, eldercare, work performance, health and wellness advice and much more
• Childcare and eldercare matching service
• Savings on everyday purchases and life events
• Access for family members and dependants – excluding counselling and legal advice

Annual leave: Annual leave is 25 days from 1st January to 31st December, plus 8 bank holidays. We offer additional long service leave of 5 days after 4 years of employment

Purpose of role:

To excel against targets in the provision of an effective supported Money Advice debt casework service that is compliant against quality standards including the MaPS quality of advice framework; ensuring that clients receive their full entitlement to all benefits, receive appropriate financial capability support and experience a positive customer experience from Citizens Advice Liverpool.

To be successful in this role, you will need to be confident, motivated and willing to try new things, have excellent communication skills with an ability to work under pressure to achieve targets and outcomes with minimum supervision.

To be appointed as a Money Advice Caseworker, you will need to have knowledge and experience of complex debt casework, covering priority and non-priority debt advice, options and insolvency solutions.

About us

The first Citizens Advice opened in Liverpool on 4th September 1939, established in the aftermath of the first world war and provided, amongst other initiatives, a casework service for families in need.

Since then, we have continued to grow as a frontline service, finding innovative solutions to the advice needs of our community through free, confidential and independent advice and information services.

Citizens Advice Liverpool is a charity, dependent on a workforce of paid staff and over 120 trained volunteers. We operate over four permanent sites (Belle Vale, Garston, Walton & Wavertree) and over 30 outreach locations in the city, which we are continually reviewing to ensure we are reaching the people most in need of our services. We have also developed a mobile phone app which acts as a single point of access for Citizens Advice in Liverpool, showing where to find advice in real time, access to self-help information, and telephone, WhatsApp, email & webchat advice.

We are a member of "National Citizens Advice", which provides the extensive information system we use to advise clients and sets standards for advice, training, equal opportunities and accessibility in our offices.

We receive funding from Liverpool City Council; which helps support our generalist advice service which gives advice on a wide range of subjects such as; benefits, work, debt & money, consumer, family, housing, law & courts, immigration and health. We also receive funding from other major contributors which helps run our specialist advice projects.

About Citizens Advice Camden
We are a well-respected local charity with more than 80 years’ experience of delivering free, independent and impartial information, advice and casework services which meet the changing needs of local residents. Our aims are to provide the independent, impartial, confidential and free advice people need for the problems they face and to improve the policies and practices that affect people’s lives. 

​We target our services at the most vulnerable in our community. Our client profile closely matches local indices of deprivation with most of our clients coming from the most deprived wards in the borough. We identify trends to ensure our services remain agile and able to respond to changing and emerging advice needs.

​About the Role

This is an exciting opportunity to work on a new initiative, providing generalist advice to service users of Mind in Camden. This new project will develop to meet the needs of service users and so you will need to be flexible in your approach.

​You will be an experienced Generalist Adviser able to work in partnership with staff at Mind in Camden to support their service users. Clients will either self-refer or be referred from the core team at Mind in Camden.

​Advice will be delivered both face-to-face and remotely according to individual needs. Face-to-face advice will be delivered at Mind in Camden offices and those of Citizens Advice Camden. This role is not suitable for remote working only.

​You will need to be experienced in delivering generalist advice on issues such as welfare benefits including Universal Credit, housing, money advice and cost of living issues. You will also be available to support Mind in Camden staff in identifying suitable referral routes to support their service users so that overall needs are met. This role is not available as a trainee position.

​​Closing date for applications: 9.00am Monday 29 April 2024

Interview date(s): 8-10 May

Hours: 37.5 Full Time (part time may be considered)
Location: Various locations in the London Borough of Hounslow
Closing date: On an on-going basis until filled – we reserve the right to withdraw this job opportunity early if this vacancy is filled
Interview date: To be arranged directly with shortlisted candidates.

Citizens Advice Hounslow is a well-established charity operating in the London Borough of Hounslow, supporting over 10,000 clients a year. We want to expand our capacity for face to face and telephone advice; hence we are looking for an experienced generalist Adviser with the ability to provide advice in person as well as on the phone through our dedicated helplines.

In particular, the role requires you to:

• conduct a thorough holistic exploration of the problem(s) to gain an accurate picture of the client’s situation
• do a benefit calculation as standard for clients
• give full advice and support to clients to resolve their issues
• where necessary, make a referral or signpost clients
• write up case notes to Citizens Advice national standards

For more information about the role and the criteria to apply for the post, please download the Job Description and Person Specification.

We might consider strong trainee advisers who have completed the adviser training and have been exposed to sufficient practical generalist work (about to achieve the adviser certificate or an equivalent qualification).

Please note: We can only respond to successful applicants. If you do not hear from us within three weeks from receipt of your application, please assume that it has been unsuccessful.

We offer a range of employee benefits, including generous annual leave, pension contribution, and training and opportunities to continue your professional development.

We consider applications from all applicants who meet the person specification irrespective of sex, gender reassignment, marriage or civil partnership status, pregnancy and maternity, sexual orientation, race, religion or belief, age, or disability.