Advisor (trainee)

Want to work in a fast-paced environment with opportunities to learn advice skills? Are you a proactive person interested in making a real difference to Disabled people?

About the role

RAID has 4 main advice areas: Information Navigation, Benefits Advice, Energy Advice and Money Advice. The Cost of Living Crisis has disproportionally impacted Disabled people, who are more likely to face higher living costs, barriers to employment and reduced financial resilience, making it harder to cope with rising household expenses. Many of the people we see are in challenging situations; struggling with debt, experiencing food and fuel poverty, facing homeless and dealing with loneliness and isolation. The work can be emotionally challenging.

As well as our advice work we administer a number of grants on behalf of local grant giving charities and the local authority and you will play a key role in helping us to process grants in a timely and efficient way as well as supporting with advice enquiries.

Our teams are busier than ever and this role will play a vital part in supporting the team with administration tasks including; processing grants and gathering client evidence, taking client enquiries from the phone, website and email and uploading them to our database, scanning and photocopying.

You will spend your time working directly with clients with a range of physical, sensory and mental health impairments to help them to fill in grant allocation forms and other forms and helping people to know their rights. You will also support our advice teams administratively; arranging appointments, sending emails and letters and uploading information to our database

You will receive training in a range of advice areas (housing, health and social care, benefits, transport and travel) as well as other relevant topics such as various mental health conditions, managing challenging behaviour, professional boundaries, and case management. You will be supported by a friendly team of experienced advisers who will have the opportunity to shadow and you will also have access to a range of external training and development opportunities.

You will need to have clear written and oral communication skills as you will need to make phone calls and write emails and letters to clients as well as providing progress updates to the team.

You will work closely with our experienced advice team and we can offer opportunities for training and development in a range of areas including social care, housing and benefits to support you on your journey to becoming and advisor.

About you

To be successful in this role you will have solid administration and organisational skills, a high degree of accuracy and attention to detail, and a level of emotional resilience that enables you to support people in challenging circumstances, while protecting your own wellbeing. You will have strong communication skills across all levels and will be a real team player with a genuine interest in supporting Disabled people.

An interest in developing advice skills in essential and experience or a background in advice and information will be an advantage.

You will have excellent communication and IT skills, administrative skills and be fully competent on Microsoft applications. You will have the ability to work independently as well as part of a team.

The ideal candidate will be passionate about social justice and the empowerment of Disabled people and excited to learn valuable skills on the job.

Disabled Candidates

We are an equal opportunities employer and particularly welcome applications from Disabled candidates. We have been awarded the Disability Confident Employer quality mark, meaning any Disabled candidates that meet the minimum criteria will be invited for interview. Please advise if have a disability or long-term health condition that you would like considering when you apply.