Mental health support worker jobs in hackney, greater london

About Us

Our vision is for every child and young person to be safe, loved and happy, to achieve their potential and have a bright future.

St Christopher's is a leading charity for children and young people. We are proud of our history of providing fostering, children's homes and innovative leaving care services across the UK & Isle of Man.  We have a passionate commitment to our young people, placing them at the centre of everything we do.  We provide positive life experiences for young people who are unable to sustain a placement in their parental or foster home.

We are an equal-opportunity employer keen to develop an inclusive workforce where people feel they belong.  We hope to attract applications from under- represented groups, including people from different cultures, nationalities, socioeconomic backgrounds, ages, disabilities, religions, faith, sex, orientation, childcare responsibilities, and gender-diverse identities.

St Christopher’s Academy

When you join St Christopher’s, we will set you up in your career with a tailored development plan. Whether you want to move across to a different service, become a Manager or just explore further your current role, we will support you to map out your career trajectory and help you achieve your professional ambitions. If you want to learn more about St Christopher’s Academy, please click here

We are proud that 84% of all our Team Leaders, Deputies and Managers are internal promotions. 

About This Role

This is an exciting new opportunity to be part of a new project within our Wraparound Service in the UK. As Psychological Therapist, key aspects of your role will be:

• Facilitation of Reflective Practice for residential staff to help support therapeutically informed practice, staff resilience and emotional wellbeing.
• Direct support to Children in Care and Care Leavers to improve their emotional health and well-being, and to provide any additional support identified as needed by statutory services to those with mental health needs.
• Working with children, residential carers and social workers where care arrangements are at risk of breaking down.
• Consultative support and training to foster carers and residential staff where there are children in placement who have complex needs.
• Support the development of the UK Therapeutic Service to help meet the needs of staff and young people across the organisation.

The successful candidate will have:

• Degree in a relevant discipline (e.g. Social Work, Psychology, Counselling, Therapy)
• A minimum of three years working directly with children, young people and families
• Experience of dealing with crisis situations and working with emergency services
• A minimum of one years’ experience of delivering therapeutic interventions
• Previous experience of delivering therapeutic interventions to children and young people with emotional and behavioural difficulties
• Experience of working in a multi-agency setting
• Knowledge of UK Legislative framework
• Good interpersonal and communication skills
• Knowledge/Experience of Care Planning and Care Management
• Ability to manage caseload and to work on own initiative
• Responsive to deadlines
• Excellent IT, report writing and presentation skills
• Ability and willingness to work outside of normal office hours as required

In return we offer:

• Competitive salary of £16000 per annum for part time work.
• A friendly working environment, a fun, open and honest culture.
• Industry Leading training programme including children’s right and participation, CSE, empowerment, mental health and Social Pedagogy.
• 25 days holiday rising to 27 days after 3 years’ service, plus Bank Holidays.
• Contributory pension scheme, Enhanced Maternity and Company Sick Scheme.
• BUPA Employee Assistance Programme, offering counselling, financial advice and legal support.
• Interest-free season ticket loan, cycle to work scheme.
• Discount shopping scheme.
• Discretionary Funding Training Programs.
• Employee Awards based on performance and length of service.

Recruitment Process

St Christopher’s is committed to the safeguarding of all children and young people in our care including the principals of Safer Recruitment. During the recruitment process you will be expected to complete an online application form to ensure we capture essential information to meet legislation, best practice and vetting requirements to assess your suitability to work with children and young people.

Applicants will ideally already be on the DBS Update Service; if this is not the case St Christopher's will carry out a DBS (police) check prior to your start date.

Your application must include a supporting statement addressing the criteria given in the Person Specification.

For the full Job Description for this role and more detail about what will be required, please click here.

It is against the law to apply for work with Children/Young People if you are barred from working in Regulated Activity and if your name is added to a Children Barred List.

All shortlisted candidates invited to interview will be asked to submit a Self-Declaration and Disclosure form which will need to be returned prior to an interview being booked.

Please note CV’s will not be accepted.

St Christopher’s Fellowship has a minimum age requirement of 21 for roles working directly with children and young people in our residential and semi-independent Homes.

We’re looking for three Parent Programme Officers to help deliver the Stregthening Families, Stregthening Communities parenting programme with integrity and care as part of a new project funded by the Youth Endowment Fund.

You’ll build trusted relationships with families, co-facilitators, peer researchers, colleagues and referral partners, ensuring the programme is safe, effective and engaging. You’ll support research and evaluation, maintain robust systems and make sure our work is informed by evidence and grounded in lived experience. 

We’re keen to work with experienced practitioners in the Strengthening Families, Strengthening Communities (SFSC)  model, or people that are familiar with it and have extensive expertise with other group parenting programmes. 

You will be an organised and confident communicator who values openness and collaboration. You’ll bring experience in partnership working, programme delivery and safeguarding, with the ability to build rapport and manage sensitive situations with professionalism. 

If you share our belief that building trusted relationships and honest partnerships can transform outcomes for young people and families, we’d love to hear from you.

This is a fantastic opportunity to develop your skills and be part of a collaborative, supportive team committed to tackling racial inequality. 

Funded by the Youth Endowment Fund, our intervention and research project, SFSC: Safer Lives, works to prevent offending and reduce youth violence by strengthening family relationships, increasing parental confidence, and promoting young people’s self-discipline, social skills and self-esteem.

The SFSC: Safer Lives programme  builds on the ground-breaking work of the Strengthening Families, Strengthening Communities inclusive parenting programme, which has demonstrated how parenting support can be provided effectively to minoritised and marginalised families.

Discipleship & Faith Formation Officer: Faith at Home

The Vacancy

Are you committed to nurturing faith in children, young people, and across the generations within family life? Do you have a heart for empowering churches and leaders to embrace whole-life discipleship? Are you a skilled educator and enabler who recognises the vital role of home in shaping spiritual journeys and is passionate about equipping others to do the same?

We are offering an interesting and varied opportunity to support the work of the Connexional Team and the wider Methodist Church in developing, providing, and maintaining quality training, resourcing, network organisation, accompaniment, and experiences – in ways that are theologically-rooted, culturally-resonant, inclusive, relational, creative, and compelling for children and young people in their homes, with their families, responsible adults, and/or care providers.

Working alongside the Discipleship Team and colleagues within the Evangelism & Growth Team, you will be developing and communicating with networks around the Methodist Church’s biblically- and theologically coherent vision and strategy for multi-generational Methodist discipleship. As part of this, an important aspect of the role will be supporting the development of a coherent discipleship pathway across different age groups within families and children at home, which will be sensitive to key transitional development stages across generations and life experiences. You will be working with circuits and local churches as well as in partnership with external organisations; in addition, you will be and active part of the development and delivery of key events such as 3Generate.

This is an exciting opportunity to help shape the future of the Methodist Church and enable people of all generations to embark on a life-long discipleship journey.

About You

We are looking for someone who wants to make a positive contribution to the work of the development and delivery of the Discipleship stream outlined in Methodist Church’s evangelism and growth strategy – part of the Church’s commitment to be a growing, inclusive, evangelistic, and justice-seeking Church.

You will preferably have experience in training and project management, and it is essential that you are experienced in children, family and youth ministry. You must be experienced in the development and delivery of teaching programmes and have a good understanding of intergenerational faith development. As a good project manager and communicator, you are able to work with ecumenical and secular partners as well as local Methodist Churches and Circuits. Experience with digital content development and social media would be an advantage.

We are a collaborative team and therefore welcome applications from those who wish to contribute to the work of the team in a positive and proactive way.

A faith is an essential requirement for this role and in accordance with Schedule 9 of the Equality Act 2010 it is and it will remain throughout the life of the employment contract an occupational requirement that the successful applicant is a practicing Christian.

Our Culture, Values and Benefits

Thank you for considering joining our inclusive and welcoming team that strives for excellence and values employee wellbeing.

We value and support all those who join our team through a positive work-life balance augmented by generous annual leave (plus an extra 3 days over Christmas/New Year), TOIL, flexi-leave and an on-site Well-being Adviser service. We offer a generous occupational pension scheme, where the Methodist Church will pay double the employee contribution up to a maximum of 16% employer contribution.

The Methodist Church is an inclusive and supportive employer. We are actively committed to encouraging applications from people of all backgrounds. We welcome applications from people of Black, Asian and other Minority Ethnic groups. We also welcome applications from people living with disabilities.

Closing date: Friday, 7 November 2025

Interview date: Friday, 21 November 2025

Are you a Home Manger looking for your next challenge?

We have a fantastic opportunity to join St Christopher's fellowship as a Home Manager for our children’s home in West London. You will lead and support a professional team of staff committed to transforming young lives and creating positive outcomes. You will be supported by Deputy Managers, Team Leaders as well as the rest of the team.

About Us

Our vision is for every child and young person to be safe, loved and happy, to achieve their potential and have a bright future.

St Christopher's is a leading charity for children and young people. We are proud of our history of providing fostering, children's homes and innovative leaving care services across the UK & Isle of Man.  We have a passionate commitment to our young people, placing them at the centre of everything we do.  We provide positive life experiences for young people who are unable to sustain a placement in their parental or foster home.

We are an equal-opportunity employer keen to develop an inclusive workforce where people feel they belong.  We hope to attract applications from under- represented groups, including people from different cultures, nationalities, socioeconomic backgrounds, ages, disabilities, religions, faith, sex, orientation, childcare responsibilities, and gender-diverse identities

 About the Role

We have a passionate commitment to our young people, placing them at the centre of everything we do and as the Home Manager; you will be a key player in building and extending this commitment.

You will lead and support a team: Deputy Managers, Team Leaders and Residential Workers and all committed to transforming lives and creating positive outcomes.

In addition we have an in house team of Therapists providing support to staff and young people within the home.

St Christopher’s Academy

Our 'St Christopher’s Academy' ensures our staff is continually developing. We will support you to map out your career trajectory and help you achieve your professional ambitions. If you want to learn more about St Christopher’s Academy, please visit our website.

The successful candidate will have

• Level 3 Diploma in Residential Childcare and, be either working towards or has achieved the Level 5 Diploma in Leadership and Management for Residential Childcare.
• Prior experience in residential children’s homes, including at least a year with staff supervision and management responsibility.
• A passion for achieving the best possible outcomes for young people.
• Excellent leadership and staff management abilities.
• Exceptional communication and interpersonal skills.
• The ability to deliver at least ‘good’ in the home’s Ofsted inspection.
• Sound business awareness and a flair for promoting the service.
• Flexibility, drive and resilience.

This role will involve some shift work plus some on call duties in the evening and at weekends. Applicants will be subject to enhanced DBS (police) checks.

In return we offer:

• Salary up to £65,000 per annum, depending on experience and qualifications.
• A friendly working environment, a fun, open and honest culture.
• 25 days holiday rising to 27 days after 3 years’ service, plus Bank Holidays, pro-rata.
• Industry Leading training programme including Young People’s right and participation, CSE, empowerment, mental health, Social Pedagogy.
• Contributory pension scheme, Enhanced Maternity and Company Sick Scheme.
• UK Life Assurance (Death in service) to the value of 3 times your annual salary.
• BUPA Employee Assistance Programme, offering counselling, financial advice and legal support.
• Interest-free season ticket loan, cycle to work scheme, childcare vouchers.
• Bluelight card; discount shopping scheme at hundreds of retailers across the UK.
• Discretionary funded training programs.
• Employee Awards based on performance and length of service.
• Fantastic opportunities to develop your career through our newly launched “St Christopher’s Academy”

Recruitment Process

At St Christopher’s we are committed to the safeguarding of all children and young people in our care. During the recruitment process you will be expected to complete an online application form to ensure we capture essential information to meet legislation, best practice and vetting requirements.

Applicants will ideally already be on the DBS Update Service; if this is not the case St Christopher's will carry out a DBS (police) check prior to starting.

Your online application must include a supporting statement addressing the criteria stated in the Person Specification. CV’s will not be accepted.

For the full Job Description and Person Specification, please visit our website.

For assistance during the application process, please contact us

This post has a minimum age restriction of 21 year for roles working directly with children and young people in our residential and supported accommodation Homes in line with the Equality Act ‘occupational requirement’.

It is illegal to apply for any role that involves working with children and young people under the age of 18, if you know you are barred from working with children.

All shortlisted candidates invited to interview will be asked to submit a Self-Declaration and Disclosure form which will need to be returned prior to an interview being booked.