Recovery Worker

Criminal Justice Substance Misuse Recovery Worker

The Recovery Hub, Portsmouth

37 hours per week, 12 months fixed term contract

Salary Scale:  22-26 (£26,986 - £30,561 per annum)

About Us

This is an exciting opportunity to join a dynamic Charity and Housing Association.  The Society of St James (SSJ) has been working in Hampshire for over 50 years, delivering high impact, person-centred, accommodation services to adults and young people experiencing homelessness, problematic substance use and mental health problems. We believe that every person is of worth and we are prepared to take risks to house and support the most at risk and socially excluded members of society.

The Role

The role will be based at The Recovery Hub in Southsea, but the work will involve taking on lead positions within the criminal justice substance misuse team and co-location, visiting clients with other services or in clients’ homes, and working alongside key partner agencies. You will work within a flexible 37 hour working week including a rota of regular evening work and some work at weekends.

The Impact you will make

• The role will involve working with people who have experienced trauma, substance misuse and mental health issues, where you can use your knowledge of criminal justice services and of the impact of substance misuse on individuals, families and the wider community.
• You will be able to support and manage a caseload of clients safely and effectively who will have a wide range of needs, risks and differing levels of motivation to change or engage in treatment.
• You will understand the impact of substance use and alcohol dependency and be skilled to offer an array of suitable and psychologically informed behaviour change interventions. This will include monitoring medical Opiate Substitute Prescriptions, completing drug screenings of urine and saliva samples, and exploring Psychosocial support options through one-to-one support so that your work helps people towards making their lives better.
• You will work closely with Portsmouth criminal justice services and be based from a range of different locations as directed by your line manager. These locations will include; Portsmouth Probation, Court teams, IOM offender management and Portsmouth custody. You may also need to travel to prisons to meet people on release from their custodial sentences, to help minimise risk of relapse and potentially fatal overdose once people begin integrating back into the community.

The Ideal candidate

• You will have a background in working in a structured one to one setting with clients around trauma and ideally have a solid career background in substance misuse, criminal justice, mental health or a similar vocation.
• You will work in a holistic and person-centred approach to support individuals who want to make changes to their lives by investing in professional relationships to help understand people’s needs and understand goals and interventions that are important.
• Working assertively to engage hard to reach people and clients who are resistant to treatment are important skills, and workers often need to be tenacious in their approach.
• Good risk assessment and management skills are essential, as well as a strong ability to build meaningful and trusting relationships with people.
• Your work with people will help keep clients safe with underpinning foundations of recovery, change and harm minimisation techniques. This will enable SSJ to deliver our purpose to create engaging opportunities for growth and development for employees and our service users alike. 
• Our ideal candidate will have high self-awareness and recognise your own resilience and challenges.
• You will have excellent time and diary management alongside a high standard of case record keeping and communication skills with clients and professional alike. 

What we can offer you

We value and recognise our staff, offering some generous benefits, as well as the satisfaction of helping people at risk:

• A competitive annual leave entitlement of 25 days rising to 30 days, plus public holidays
• Flexible working options
• Buying additional annual leave
• Comprehensive induction and training
• Counselling, financial, personal support and health and wellbeing services via our Employee Assistance Programme
• Company cycle to work scheme
• Discounted laptops and computers with Jamie’s Computers
• Electric Car Scheme
• Blue Light Card

SSJ are an equal opportunity employer and we encourage applicants from all backgrounds and walks of life.

At SSJ, we recognise the benefits of a supported workplace. SSJ is affiliated with Unite the Union. To learn more about their membership benefits or to sign up, you can visit their official website.

Application closing date:   Friday 14^th August 2026

Due to the high number of expected applicants, we do reserve the right to close this vacancy earlier.

Should you not hear from us within 14 days of the closing date, please assume you have been unsuccessful on this occasion.