Family Support Practitioner

Location: London

Salary: £24,000 plus Benefits

Vacancy Type: Permanent, Full Time

We are recruiting for a Family Support Practitioner at HMP Wormwood Scrubs.

At the Forward Trust we define family as a group of 2 or more individuals whose relationship plays a significant role in their lives. We recognise the value and complexity of family and understand the potential positive and negative impact of relationships.

We believe how a family is defined is up to the individuals within that system and that we all hold our own unique version of what family looks like.

Our family work aims to strengthen relationships and interpersonal connections, so every person feels safe, supported and valued by the people they surround themselves with.

Role Responsibilities

Part of the Family Support and Specialist Programmes department, the Family Support Practitioner role will work in both their allocated prison and local community, providing specialist support to clients and family members through the delivery of effective 1:1 and group interventions. The role is also required to work closely with other Forward staff and external partners to ensure a holistic package of care and support is provided.

Recognising the importance of relationships in the lives of the people we support is crucial to providing the best possible treatment and services. This role will focus specifically on supporting clients to recognise healthy and unhealthy relationships, build new relationships and understand the role relationships play in their addiction, offending, mental health and other areas of need.

The Family Support Practitioner will also directly support family members and affected others, helping them to improve their health and wellbeing and help them to support clients to make positive changes. This role may be expected to work directly with children and young people, to promote whole family recovery and rehabilitation.

You will receive ongoing support and training including Organisational , specialist departmental training prison training and eLearning to support you with this role. This is a Hybrid role working from home and in the prison.

All prison-based roles will require enhanced DBS and HMPPS security vetting. Please note this process can take up to 3-12 weeks. All offers are subject to receiving both HMPPS vetting and DBS clearances.

Checks will require you to provide information on the below:

• Yourself (personal information, financial information, police information, criminal history).
• Your family (parents, parents’ partners, siblings, partner(s), children).
• Co-residents.
• Associations that may cause a conflict of interest with your role or the prison service.
• Background checks across police information systems on you, your family and other associates.
• Credit reference checks.
• Social media and Open-Source checks (these are checks on content about you that's publicly available on the internet to ensure there's nothing linked to you that could undermine public trust and confidence in the prison service).
• Other government and overseas agency or police checks.

The Ideal Candidate

We are looking for individuals who are flexible and organised and who have experience working in a prison and delivering family work.

• Experience of providing family related support to clients with a history of addiction, offending and mental health problems.
• Experience of providing support directly to family members/affected others.
• Experience of working with complex families and facilitating family meetings.
• Experience of delivering group interventions/facilitating group work with clients.
• A flexible and adaptable approach to meet the needs of the service as it develops.
• A positive problem-solving approach with the ability to focus on key issues quickly and clearly.
• Excellent communication skills.
• The ability to engage effectively with the client group.
• Understanding of the voluntary sector.
• Understanding of and sensitivity to diversity, equality and inclusion.
• A good understanding of adult and child/YP safeguarding responsibilities.

About Us

We are The Forward Trust, the social enterprise with charitable status that empowers people to break the often interlinked cycles of crime and addiction to move forward with their lives. For more than 25 years we have been working with people to build positive and productive lives, whatever their past. We believe that anyone is capable of lasting change. Our services have supported thousands of people to make positive changes and build productive lives with a job, family, friends and a sense of community.

We are committed to our cause and the work we carry out as a charity. Equally the wellbeing and the employees who work for us are also important. Joining us an employee, we will offer you the following benefits - 

• Flexible working
• Training and development opportunities
• Simply Health Cashback Scheme 
• Season Ticket Loan Scheme 
• Cycle to work scheme
• Crisis Loan Scheme
• Electric Car Scheme
• 3 x Wellbeing Days (pro rata'd for part time employees)
• Access to Blue Light Card
• 25 days (rising to 30 with length of service) Annual Leave plus Bank Holidays 
• Contributory Pension Scheme – Employer matched contributions of up to 6% in the first two years’ service and up to 9% thereafter 
• Death in Service Payment (2x annual salary) 
• Critical Illness Insurance 

To Apply

If you feel you are a suitable candidate and would like to work for the Forward Trust, please proceed through the following link to be redirected to their website to complete your application.

https://careers.forwardtrust.org.uk/vacancies/77/family-support-practitioner.html

Contact information

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