Criminal Justice Key Worker Vacancies (West Yorkshire)

PLEASE NOTE - Applicants will only be considered if you provide both a CV and Cover Letter

The role is only open to women, in accordance with the sex-based exemptions of the Equality Act 2010 pursuant to Schedule 9, Part 1.

Criminal Justice Key Worker (Leeds, Bradford, Wakefield, Halifax/Huddersfield) - Please indicate which location is preferred in your application.

Salary: £27,443 pro rata, per annum

Location: West Yorkshire

Positions available: 4

Hours: 37 hours full-time and 18.5 hours part-time available

Together Women is looking for 4 outstanding Criminal Justice Key Workers to join our West Yorkshire Team.

The Key Workers will engage with and provide intensive support to women across a range of areas, including: accommodation, finance, emotional wellbeing, family and significant others, lifestyle and associates, education and employment, dependency and recovery, and social inclusion.

Join Our Team

• Are you driven and passionate about working within a women-centred support service?
• Are you looking for a dynamic and rewarding role working for an organisation that delivers specialist gender specific support to women and girls?
• Do you believe in our values; to listen and support, to empower and respect, collaborate, innovate and take accountability?

What we can offer you - Employee Benefits:

• 25 days holiday increasing by one day per year to a max of 30 days, plus public holidays
• Pension scheme with 5% employer contribution
• Annual cost of living increase up to 4%
• Enhanced Training and Induction programme covering all areas of Together Women’s work
• Access to our Employee Assistance Programme with discount offers and free telephone counselling service
• Access to our online wellbeing platform
• Employee eye-care scheme and free eye tests
• Organisation wide away days
• Career development pathways

Role Summary

In our gender-specific centres, we provide holistic support to women by women, to overcome challenges and address needs. We help women build upon their strengths and work through any barriers that are preventing them from progressing and achieving their potential.

The Criminal Justice Key Worker will engage with and provide intensive support to women on Probation, offering needs-led, emotional and practical support relating to accommodation, finance, benefits and debts, family and significant others, emotional wellbeing, dependency and recovery, lifestyle and associates, employment and education, and social inclusion support pathways.

You will work closely with Probation staff, who are co-located at our Centre, as well as with Together Women teams and local community organisations to enable and encourage women to access relevant support and resources. You will work with women to help them build upon their strengths and work through any barriers that are preventing them from progressing and achieving their potential.

Working within the Women’s Criminal Justice Team you will be proactive, organised, personable and empathic. You will need to be able to work effectively independently, sometimes under pressure to meet challenging deadlines. Prison clearance will be required.

Key Accountabilities

Responsible for a caseload of women, to whom you will provide high quality customer support via the following:

• Assisting women in identifying their own needs and supporting them to progress using a strength-based and trauma-informed approach to reduce the likelihood of further offending.
• Providing flexible, proactive outreach support to women who may be reluctant to engage with services or who need additional support to comply with Court/Prison Licence requirements, reducing the likelihood of breach or recall to custody.
• Accompanying women to appointments in the community, acting as advocate as required.
• Facilitating and delivering therapeutic group work activities.
• Working with other practitioners within the Partnership to review and monitor women’s progress against agreed support plans.
• Determining the nature and extent of treatment and support that is appropriate to develop social capital and enable rehabilitation for women.
• Promoting the programme using branded literature and materials throughout the community and in local prisons.
• Contributing to the Development of a cohort of peers who can support learners.
• Establishing community focus and development approaches to ensure that all women accessing the service have effective, sustainable support networks in place.
• Identifying and supporting access to community resources to facilitate a successful exit from the programme.
• Working within and alongside an integrated model of care involving Health, Criminal Justice System and Social Care professionals.
• Encouraging feedback from women using the service in order to promote quality assurance.
• Contributing to measuring and monitoring systems as required.
• Ensuring all necessary records are properly maintained in line with policies on client files, finance and administration.
• Using evaluation, learning, experience and feedback to support service development.
• Managing and updating own skills base to ensure quality service delivery and personal development in role.

Role Requirements

Essential Criteria:

• Experience of the delivery of services for women
• Knowledge and understanding of the challenges faced by women, the pathways into offending, and the impact this can have on their life chances and outcomes
• Experience of working with women within a support role/ frontline capacity, ideally with experience of strengths-based working and/or trauma-informed approaches
• Experience assessing needs and risks, and translating these into a person-centred support and safety plan
• Experience of case management and recording, or equivalent record keeping experience
• Experience of building positive partnerships with other agencies and experience/an understanding of the benefits of collaborative problem solving
• Strong IT skills (PC literate and competent in using MS Office)
• GCSE (or equivalent) in Maths & English - Grade C or above
• Satisfactory enhanced DBS check

Desirable Requirements:

• Relevant NVQ or equivalent at Level 3 or 4
• Experience & competence in report writing
• Advocacy experience or skills
• Experience/ an understanding of delivering interventions or programmes which help women recover from complex trauma, develop strategies to overcome obstacles and challenges, and build their skills
• Experience/ an understanding of trauma responsive support for women.
• Experience of group work

Our competency framework: qualities we are looking for in candidates:

Client focus

Service Provision

• Commitment and enthusiasm for working with our customer group
• Empathy with client group
• Manages caseload and delivers support as per the requirements of the service contract and the internal quality audit framework requirements

Recording & monitoring

• Maintain case files and administrative/monitoring systems effectively

Interpersonal Skills

Working with others:

• Builds and maintains effective working relationships, with customers and stakeholders; within the organisation and external to it
• Manage and ensure that clear professional and emotional boundaries are established
• Demonstrates a keen understanding of the ability to adapt one’s approach when working with different groups (e.g. customers, partner agencies, stakeholders and colleagues)

Communication

• Presents spoken and written information clearly and appropriately and to a high standard

Diversity

• Builds trust and demonstrates respect for others, showing an awareness of the impact on own behaviour on others
• Treats everyone fairly and consistently
• Demonstrates an open and non-judgemental approach, seeking to understand others’ experiences and perspectives.
• Demonstrates efforts to provide inclusive environments, culturally specific support, and promotes a feeling of psychological safety for all women.

Personal effectiveness

Risk management

• Works in line with policy and procedure
• Applies and promotes risk management
• Aware of the need for confidentiality in dealing with information; of when confidentiality should be preserved and of the circumstances when it is right to reveal confidential information and to whom to is right to do so

Approach to work

• Willing to learn and develop
• Plans, organises and implements work, on own initiative with minimum direct supervision
• Flexible and creative approach at work; able to adapt to the changing needs of the program
• Ability to manage time, prioritise and meet deadlines
• Organised approach, with keen admin skills and attention to detail
• Makes clear decisions and deal positively with challenges

We actively encourage applications from women from a variety of backgrounds, and with a range of skills and experiences. We are particularly interested to hear from Black, Asian and minority ethnic women and women who have personal experience of the criminal justice system. This post is open to female applicants only as being female is deemed to be a genuine occupational requirement under Schedule 9, Paragraph 1 of the Equality Act 2010.

To apply: Please submit your up-to-date CV with a cover letter setting out how you meet the criteria for the role and outlining your interest in the position. Please indicate your preferred location (Leeds, Bradford, Wakefield, Halifax/Huddersfield) in your application.

PLEASE NOTE - applications without a cover letter will not be considered.

Please also complete our equality and diversity monitoring form - https://forms.office.com/e/pVGhLApKPz

The information you provide will:

• not be used as part of the selection process;
• not be seen by the interview panel;
• only be used for statistical purposes. No information will be published which allows any individual to be identified.

Closing Date: 9:00am, 6th January 2025

Interview Date: 14th and 15th January 2025

Job Types: Full-time, Part-time

Pay: £29,423.00 per year

Expected hours: 18.5 – 37 per week

Benefits:

• Company pension

Schedule:

• Monday to Friday

Work Location: In person

Application deadline: 06/01/2025