Keyworker (Ref KEY-242)

Are you a proactive, compassionate and collaborative individual with a proven record of engaging positively with young people, families, offenders, or other vulnerable groups?  Do you have strong experience of providing support, advice and advocacy and the ability to assess clients’ needs?

If so, join St Giles as a Key Worker, where you will play an integral part in the new specialist multi-agency and multi-disciplinary Young Persons Team in Wolverhampton, providing a high-level service to vulnerable or at-risk young people (11-25) and their families across the different levels of need and support, from early help to children and young people in care.

About St Giles Trust 
An ambitious, well-established charity that helps people facing adversity to find jobs, homes and the right support they need.  Central to our ethos is our belief that people with first-hand experience of successfully overcoming issues such as an offending background, homelessness, addictions and gang involvement, hold the key to positive change in others.  

About this key role

As a proactive member of the multi-disciplinary team, our successful candidate will share best practice with other team members in relation to approaches and strategies to support and engage young people and their families to achieve best outcomes, plus work collaboratively to develop plans of support and promote programmes of social education, activities, support, advice, and information, using a range of multi-sensory methods.

We will count on you to build positive relationships and promote the value of lifestyle changes to the client group and their families and to ensure that the voice of the child and young person remains central to their support and that they are proactively encouraged to build and contribute to their own programmes.  You will contribute to multi-disciplinary assessments of children and families in need of support and provide both proactive planned programmes of support and an intensive service which will include interventions to support emotional wellbeing and health and substance misuse; creative arts activities; support responding risks of criminal, gang and/or sexual exploitation; mentoring; and sports activities. Maintaining accurate records of support and interventions is also a key duty.

What we are looking for

• Experience of engaging successfully with challenging people
• Experience in negotiating with partner agencies to establish links to further the aims of the project
• Experience of working to targets and recording information for performance monitoring
• An understanding of the client group and the challenges and motivations of young people
• Sound knowledge of using monitoring systems to record all aspects of the project
• Able to recognise the signs of child sexual exploitation (CSE) and take appropriate action
• Ability to set up and operate systems to monitor and report on work
• Excellent IT, interpersonal and communication skills, both verbal and written.

We actively encourage people with personal experience of the criminal justice system or lived experience of the issues facing this client group to apply for this role.

In return, you can expect a competitive salary, generous leave allowance, staff pension, flexible working, a mentoring programme, an advice and counselling service, clinical therapist sessions, life insurance (4 x annual salary), duvet days, season ticket loan, employee perks programme, eye care voucher and much more.

Successful candidates must undergo an Enhanced Child Workforce DBS check, on the basis that the post involves contact with vulnerable participants.

We are an equity and inclusion confident employer. We welcome all applications and we particularly encourage applications from people of the global majority (black, brown, multi- heritage) and those who identify as disabled, neuroexpansive, neurodiverse, with any protected characteristics and/or social barriers or challenges. We value the empowering and informative impact that all lived experiences and diversity of thought can offer the organisation.

St Giles will guarantee to interview all disabled applicants who meet the minimum criteria set out in the Job Description for the vacancy.