Substance misuse jobs

About the project  

The Housing Advice Practitioner will by providing tailored advice and guidance through mainly remote online or phone support, as well as in person housing advice at a weekly housing advice surgery in the community. The role will include advocacy, coordination with legal services, workshops, and ensuring sustained support for families. 

This new Information and Advice Support Service is established to a) provide a light touch swift response service for less complex housing issues; and b) develop mechanisms for the early identification of emerging housing problems.

About the role  

We are looking for an experienced, motivated and compassionate support worker to deliver housing advice and practical support to individuals and families. This role involves responding to enquiries, conducting housing surgeries, and running workshops to empower clients with the knowledge and skills to address their housing-related issues. The successful candidate will work with clients to identify their needs and offer tailored solutions to help them achieve sustainable housing outcomes. In this role, you will be working in partnership with community organisations and the council to coordinate tailored support for each client to address their housing issues. The objective of the programme is to provide advice and support to clients who have problems related to their housing and to improve wellbeing and awareness of tenancy rights and housing polices.

About you  

You will have experience of providing housing advice and working with individuals with complex needs.You will be an enthusiastic person who has empathy, patience, and a non-judgmental approach to working with clients and who thrives when working independently with a passion to support change. 

You will have:

• Excellent interpersonal and communication skills 
• Strong knowledge of housing policies and tenants' rights 
• Experience of delivering holistic support 
• Experience arranging and delivering workshops or other community events
• Good experience of working in partnerships with community and statutory organisations
• Ability to research and connect with community and statutory organisations to promote the service
• Be a solution-minded thinker, have a good understanding of strength-based approaches and be able work committing to promoting equality, diversity, and inclusion in all aspects of work. 
• Have good organisational and planning skills
• To work as part of a team and independently, the roles require you to think creatively and use the resources around you effectively.  

About Kineara  

Kineara is a unique community interest company that supports people in poverty across London who facing barriers to housing, employment and education. We break down barriers, provide holistic support for families, vulnerable adults, and school pupils, and deliver intensive one-to-one interventions to those in need of extra help through challenging times. We use holistic, trauma-informed methods, partnership working and a flexible, non-judgemental approach that puts the needs of those we work with first.   

Help us tackle health inequalities and support people excluded from care.

You’ll coordinate and deliver DOTW’s (London-based) outreach clinics and national advice line, guiding volunteers and ensuring compassionate, high-quality services for people facing destitution, violence, trafficking, or homelessness.

We’re looking for someone with excellent coordination and advocacy skills, emotional resilience, and experience supporting vulnerable groups. You’ll lead with empathy, think on your feet, and keep service users’ safety and dignity at the heart of everything you do.

We offer clinical supervision, wellbeing support, and training in trauma-informed and safeguarding practice.

We warmly welcome applicants with lived experience of migration, homelessness, or exclusion from health services.

Role and Responsibilities

Housing and Service Delivery

• Provide strong and effective support to residents in Acorn House that focuses on their strengths and goals, and is delivered in a personalised way and within a framework of active engagement and co-production

• Developing and reviewing support plans that reflect the interests and aspirations of residents

• Induct new residents in line with the service’s policies and procedures and support them to continue in their journey towards recovery from addiction

• Carry out assessments of those referred to Acorn House, and induct new residents

• Ensure the fundamental needs of residents are met including good quality accommodation and facilities, healthy food, advice and guidance around benefits, and alcohol and drug testing (to help maintain an abstinent environment)

• Deal with the immediate support needs of residents as appropriate, providing crisis intervention where necessary

• Support residents in addressing physical and mental health issues, including liaison with primary and secondary health teams

• Ensure residents are supported through court or welfare rulings (if necessary)

• Ensure effective and compliant administration of resident data using a bespoke Salesforce- based platform (In-Form)

• Ensure Housing Benefit and Services Charges are collected and managed effectively 

• Be flexible and responsive to the changing needs of the service, ensuring high quality support is provided

• Ensure each resident’s support plan is written, monitored and reviewed as appropriate to reflect their changing needs and development

• Ensure residents progress and engage with other SCT programmes (when required)

• Ensure conditions and requirements relating to any contracts or management agreements are applied throughout SCT’s services

• Work effectively as part of a team, attending team/ staff meetings and making a positive contribution to the development of the team and wider SCT services

• Effectively control and manage financial records appropriate to the duties of the post (petty cash/rent) 

• Participate in a feedback culture for continuous improvement

• Promote social inclusion, supporting residents to access all benefits available to them

• Support residents with physical and mental health issues, including liaison primary and secondary health care services as required

• Ensure all repairs and maintenance needs are raised

Monitoring and Evaluation

• Maintain accurate records of residents on In-Form

Operational Support

• Comply with Health and Safety, including but not limited to any fire maintenance, risk assessments and complete room checks and raise any risks to the Supported Housing Manager

• Ensure equipment of all applicable facilities is in good working order

• To provide an on-call/out-of-hours service when required

• Carry out other duties as may reasonably be required 

Special Conditions

• This post requires the holder to work varying shifts between 08.00 am and 8.00 pm and participation in the call rota system (for which an additional allowance is paid)

• The post-holder is required to work weekends as part of a rota and Bank Holidays when required

• On occasions you may be requested to change your rota to ensure the requirements of the service are covered

• In accordance with the guidelines on Health and Safety, to accept responsibility for working within these guidelines and reporting any concerns to the Supported Housing Manager