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We are looking for someone experienced, proactive, organised and confident in delivering on tasks. Someone who values collaboration, co-production and working in a culture rooted in trust, flexibility and compassion.
This is an opportunity to provide trauma-informed, gender-sensitive casework support with women impacted by their own or someone else’s gambling who are experiencing complex and intersecting challenges including mental health difficulties, debt, homelessness, relationship breakdown, neurodiversity, coercive control, isolation and safeguarding risks.
The role provides longer-term, structured support and advocacy, primarily online and by telephone, helping women stabilise, rebuild safety, access services and strengthen resilience.
This role requires high emotional literacy, strong boundaries, and safe risk management within a multi-agency framework.
Key Responsibilities
Intensive Casework Support
- Provide structured 1:1 support to women with complex needs.
- Develop collaborative support plans with clear goals and review points.
- Provide safety planning where risk is identified.
- Support women navigating debt, housing, legal and safeguarding systems.
- Facilitate access to specialist services (mental health, housing, domestic abuse, financial advice, substance misuse, etc.).
- Support women experiencing homelessness risk, including advocacy with local authorities and housing providers.
- Maintain ongoing contact over medium-to-longer term support journeys (as agreed in service model).
Risk Assessment & Safeguarding
- Identify and respond appropriately to safeguarding concerns.
- Conduct proportionate risk screening and escalate concerns to DSL.
- Work in accordance with safeguarding policy.
- Maintain awareness of suicide risk indicators and escalate appropriately.
- Record safeguarding actions accurately and promptly.
Advocacy & Systems Navigation
- Advocate on behalf of women with external agencies where appropriate.
- Support women in understanding rights and entitlements.
- Attend multi-agency meetings (online) where required.
- Work collaboratively with associate counsellors when women are accessing therapy.
Trauma-Informed & Gender-Sensitive Practice
- Deliver support grounded in trauma-informed principles.
- Recognise impact of shame, stigma and gender-based inequality.
- Understand intersection of gambling harm with coercive control, domestic abuse, and financial exploitation.
- Maintain non-judgemental, strengths-based approach.
- Respect women’s autonomy and lived experience.
Record Keeping & Data
- Maintain accurate case notes in our CRM system.
- Complete outcome measures as required.
- Contribute to monitoring and evaluation processes.
- Maintain confidentiality in line with GDPR and safeguarding frameworks.
Professional Boundaries
- Participate in supervision and reflective practice.
- Escalate complex clinical risk appropriately.
Working Relationships
Internal:
Service Manager
Peer Support Coordinators
Associate Counsellors
Operational Manager (for data compliance)
External:
Housing services
Debt advice agencies
Mental health services
Domestic abuse services
Local authorities
Primary Care and GP services
Voluntary sector partners
Person Specification
Essential Education & Qualifications
- Level 3 or Level 4 qualification in:
- Health & Social Care
- Counselling Skills
- Community Work
- Social Care
- Or equivalent relevant field
- Safeguarding Level 3 (or willingness to obtain)
- Understanding of trauma-informed practice
Desirable Qualifications
- Level 4 Diploma in Counselling
- Domestic Abuse awareness training
- Suicide prevention training (ASIST or equivalent)
- Debt, welfare or housing training
- Mental health awareness qualifications
- Neurodiversity
Essential Experience
- Minimum 2 years experience supporting women with complex needs.
- Experience working with individuals experiencing:
- Mental health challenges
- Financial hardship or debt
- Housing instability or homelessness risk
- Isolation or social exclusion
- Experience working remotely (online/phone support).
- Experience multi-agency working.
- Experience risk management and safeguarding escalation.
Desirable Experience
- working with gambling harm.
- supporting family members impacted by addiction.
- working within women-only services.
- working with domestic and financial abuse.
- experience of advocacy and case coordination roles.
- experience of supporting women who identify as neurodiverse
Skills & Competencies
- Strong relational skills.
- Ability to hold distress without rescuing.
- Clear professional boundaries.
- Excellent written case recording.
- Emotional resilience.
- Good digital literacy.
- Ability to work autonomously within structured supervision.
- Understanding of intersectionality and inequality.
Trauma-Informed & Gender-Sensitive Expectations
Postholder must:
- Understand the impact of shame and secrecy in gambling harm.
- Recognise coercive financial control.
- Be sensitive to caring roles and stigma.
- Work at pace appropriate to trauma recovery.
- Avoid deficit-based language.
- Recognise cultural and structural barriers affecting women.
Our current operational days are Tue-Thurs with potential evening work and appointments outside of these days.
Working with thrivin’ together
· Application deadline: Tuesday 31 March 12 noon 2026
· Provisional Interview date: Wednesday 15 April 2026
We stand alongside women impacted by their own or someone else’s gambling and create space for healing, connection and confidence.
The client requests no contact from agencies or media sales.
Salary – Grade 4 - £34,596 per annum, pro rata for part time
Hours: 1 x Full Time – 35 hours and 1 x part time - 21 hours per week - can be worked flexibly
Contract: Both fixed term until end of March 2028
Location: Flexible location with occasional travel to Manchester, Birmingham or Sheffield
Closing date: Wednesday 25th March 2026 at 11:30pm
Are you a customer-focused individual with recent experience of providing specialist level debt advice? Then join Shelter as a Specialist Debt Adviser supporting client-facing debt advisers with their complex casework, contributing to resources and helping us to influence the debt advice sector.
About the Team
Our Specialist Debt Advice service works with front-line debt advisers based across England & Wales, providing support with their complex case work. The service currently operates between 9-5 Monday to Friday, with advisers offering live support to clients on a rota basis throughout the week.
About the Role
As a Specialist Debt Adviser, you will be responsible for handling phone and email enquiries to the service, using diagnostic questioning to fully establish the caller's enquiry and providing detailed and timely responses. We'll also rely on you to identify and act upon any emergency enquiries and prioritise your workload accordingly. Helping our Team to produce written and on-line content and provide service users with the latest developments in debt regulation, policy and good practice will be important too.
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
You are someone who champions user-focused advice and who can take complex language and processes and make them easy to understand for professional advisers and other audiences. You will need excellent all-round understanding of debt advice, with experience of producing written and on-line resources, including guidance documents, webinars and attendance at networking events, providing service users with the latest debt regulation, policy and good practice. You have good typing skills and proficiency using Microsoft office applications and case management and reporting systems.
Benefits
We offer a wide range of benefits, including 30 days of annual leave (pro rata), enhanced family friendly policies, pension and interest free travel loans. Our employees also have access to a tenancy deposit loan, payroll giving, cycle to work scheme and an employee assistance programme.
About Shelter
Home is a human right. It’s our foundation and where we thrive. Yet every day millions of people are being devastated by the housing emergency.
We exist to defend the right to a safe home. Because home is everything.
We need ambitious, passionate people to join us. This is your chance to play a part in the fundamental change we are striving to achieve.
Our enemy is the social injustice at the core of the escalating housing emergency. To win this fight, we must be representative of the people we are here to help and those who support our movement. In all our people decisions, we take pride in being inclusive, equitable and transparent. We are committed to combating racism both within and outside Shelter. We welcome you on our journey to becoming truly anti-racist.
Safeguarding Statement
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.
How to apply
Please submit your CV, along with a supporting statement. The supporting statement should demonstrate how you meet the four knowledge, skills and experience points in the About You section of the job description, along with the following behaviours:
- 'We prioritise diversity and have an inclusive and open mindset'
- 'We are open to risk and learning from our experiences'.
Please use real examples and write up to 350 words per point/behaviour. CVs without an accompanying supporting statement will not be considered.
Please specify at the top of your supporting statement whether you would like to be considered for the part time role, the full time role or both roles.
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.
You will be instrumental in the quality and impactful implementation, delivery and retention of our sites. You will oversee the delivery of exceptional outcomes in support of the charity's mission. You will work as part of a Regional team to deliver outstanding programmes across your geography, establishing and leading partnerships throughout the life of a programme.
Regular travel throughout your geographical location will be required, with occasional travel to other areas of the UK. Please stipulate where you are based when applying.
In addition, occasional international travel may be required, such as the opportunity to attend the annual conference in the United States.
You will report to the Regional within the Delivery & Partnerships team or the Associate Director of Business Development.
- We will conduct selection throughout Thursday March 26th and Friday March 27th – with a multi-stage process taking place across the 2 days.
Key Responsibilities
· You will be accountable for the retention and outcomes of your portfolio of programmes.
· You will work closely with colleagues in both the Delivery & Partnership team and the Quality & Impact team to pursue quality delivery of programmes that adheres to model fidelity.
· You will hold partners and stakeholders to account for their key responsibilities in the delivery of quality programmes.
Application Instructions
- We will conduct selection throughout Thursday March 26th and Friday March 27th – with a multi-stage process taking place across the 2 days.
We will review applications as they come in and close when we have sufficient numbers
The client requests no contact from agencies or media sales.