goodmoves

Equal Say has been providing advocacy for people with disabilities since 1995. We want to recruit a new worker for our project in North Lanarkshire working with adults with disabilities, mental ill health and/or long-term conditions.

If you have knowledge or experience of any of the following, we want to hear from you:

• Providing advocacy or representation to marginalised people
• Experience of working with people with disabilities, mental ill health and/or long-term conditions.
• Experience of casework in a community setting
• Autonomous working within a small team
• A passion for inclusion and natural justice

We offer 37 days holiday, 6% matched pension, travel allowance, company mobile phone and flexible working.

This post is subject to membership of the PVG scheme and suitable references.

Responsible to the Chair on behalf of the Board of Directors

Purpose

To provide leadership to the organisation, ensuring the successful delivery and future development of our independent advocacy service.

CONTEXT OF THE ROLE:

This post is responsible for the following key areas: responsible for all aspects of the day to day management of the Forth Valley Advocacy Service day-to-day case management and allocation of advocacy cases, risk and governance management and contracts management.

About Forth Valley Advocacy

Based in Larbert, FVA has been delivering independent advocacy to the people of Clackmannanshire, Falkirk and Stirling for over 25 years. We support people with a broad range of needs including mental health problems, learning disabilities, autism and dementia, helping them to have a stronger voice and as much control as possible over their own lives. We help people to get the information they need to make choices about the care they receive and support them to put their views across to others. We may speak on behalf of people who cannot do so for themselves.

We are funded by a consortium comprising NHS Forth Valley and Clackmannanshire, Falkirk and Stirling Councils to provide a free service to people who are having decisions made about their care or treatment under legislation relating to incapacity, mental health or need for support or protection. The current contract ends on 30th October 2021 and the re-tendering process is currently underway.

In 2003, we became a registered charity and company limited by guarantee. We are as free as possible from any conflicts of interest - the board, management and advocacy workers are not under the control of health or social services.

Headway Highland (SC023551) is a small independent charity that supports adults with an acquired brain injury, their families and carers. We have an exciting opportunity for a part-time, home based community worker covering Inverness and the surrounding area. This will be for a 12-month contract providing maternity cover.

The post holder will be required to work 16 hours per week at a salary of £19,554 pro-rata. This post may include some evening work, so flexibility is essential. A car driver is also essential as there will be travel involved (car mileage costs will be paid at 45p per mile)

The post holder will be required to facilitate support groups based on social activities, supervise/support volunteers, organise fundraising events and generate awareness of the charity. The postholder will be expected to plan and organise telephone and Zoom support to our members as well as outdoor walking groups. Good digital and social media skills would be beneficial. The applicant will have experience of working with vulnerable adults.

Essential for the role

Personal lived experience of homelessness, alcohol or other drugs, mental health issues and / or involvement in criminal justice system.

Must be willing to use your lived experience to engage with service users

About the Service

We are part of Edinburgh Housing First Consortium led by Edinburgh Cyrenians comprised of Turning Point Scotland, Rock Trust, Streetwork, Bethany Christian Trust, Gowrie Care and Barony Care.

During pandemic staff are based at home for administration tasks but carry on day to day face to face outreach as normal with PPE supplied.

All staff in this role are classed as essential workers and are eligible for the vaccine.

About Turning Point Scotland (TPS)

TPS works with adults who are experiencing a range of support needs. This includes housing and homelessness, learning disability, autism, acquired brain injury, fluctuating mental health, physical disabilities, problematic alcohol and/or other drug use and involvement in the criminal justice system. We believe that people matter. We believe they are the experts on their support needs. It is for us to work creatively with them and with partners to ensure we meet those needs.

Every day we work with well over 4,000 people and every year around 8,700. We help them to address issues they are experiencing and recognise their own skills and interests.

We embed our approach to support in a framework of Citizenship. Using this we deliver a holistic approach promoting the recovery, self-determination and inclusion of people experiencing challenges in their life. And we do this through focusing on their strengths and the valuable contributions they can make to their communities.

We define Citizenship as a measure of the strength of an individual’s connection to the 5 R’s of rights, responsibilities, roles, resources, and relationships that society makes available to its members.

Homelessness work within TPS

TPS are the biggest provider of services to people experiencing or at risk of Homelessness across Scotland. We deliver support to over 2800 individuals on any given day, and over 5,100 each year. This number increases when taking into account our services accessed through Justice or Alcohol and Other Drugs funding streams.

We believe that in many cases, Homelessness is entirely preventable. It is failures in the silo’d and complex systems that we have designed to protect people that prevent us from achieving this. Where Homelessness is not or cannot be prevented the experience should be short lived, and we should meet that with a psychologically informed response. A menu of options should be available to individuals to prevent or support someone to move on from Homelessness. This ensures we use a no wrong door approach to accessing services.

We deliver a range of service models. These include Outreach Housing Support, Outreach Housing First, Outreach Crisis Support and Supported Accommodation. In line with our Citizenship approach we have a specific focus on key areas. These are; Building on people’s strengths, skills and interests as well as meeting their needs; Connecting people to communities, people and / or places; Harm reduction and / or Recovery; and providing a Psychologically informed / Trauma informed approach.

We also deliver a range of additional services across the country. Examples include Peer Mentoring services, Community Connectors, TPS Moving Service and TPS Connects amongst many other initiatives.

We recognise the importance of animals in people’s lives and helping individuals move on from the trauma they have experienced. We are currently developing our policies and frameworks to engage with stakeholders and develop our policy and procedures to make our services as pet friendly as possible.

We are also active members of the European Federation of National Organisations with the Homeless (FEANTSA).

Service Model

In 2010 TPS invested in the UK’s first Housing First pilot project. This was in response to the clear evidence that there was a small population who were experiencing multiple and enduring support needs and were being failed – and worse, increasingly traumatised – by the homelessness system that is supposed to help them. Since then we have grown our services across multiple local authorities including Consortium partnerships with other agencies. We believe that a home is a human right and that an individual is best placed to deal with the issues that often made them homeless in the first place, in a place they can call home. We believe that Housing First should be the default model for people who are experiencing homelessness and have multiple and enduring support needs. We believe strongly on delivering Housing First with high fidelity to the 7 principles and working towards ensuring we deliver Systems Fidelity within the wider systems that Housing First effects or is effected by. We deliver the Housing First Academy focussed on the Communities of Practice Hub, Training Hub and Housing First Europe Hub.

We are also active co-founding members of the Housing First Europe Hub.