Outreach

**Personal Assistant Outreach**

This is an important job with Possabilities CIC. That’s because we regard every one of our jobs as important. We want people who are passionate, caring and fun. If this sounds a bit like you then carry on reading. You’ll find all you need to know in this job description. If there’s something you are not clear about, please ask us if you are invited for an interview.

**Where?**

We work in many locations, mainly across the Rochdale, Heywood, Middleton area, but you may be asked to work in another location to best meet the needs of individuals we provide services to.

**What?**

Personal Assistants have a wide range of duties and tasks. There’s more about these later. The main aim is to provide the best personalised support to our service users who receive Outreach Support.

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**Rewards**

We offer a competitive salary and benefits package. The starting salary for a Personal Assistant is £21,029.27 per annum (pro rata for part time). We will pay up to an additional 4% of your salary into a pension plan for you, which will grow every year until you retire.

You will have a chance to progress. We give you training and help you gain NVQ qualifications

You may be required to sleep-in overnight at one of our facilities or people’s homes. You’ll be paid extra for this and given time off in lieu when you attend house meetings.

That’s not all. You’ll get twenty days paid holiday plus eight statutory bank holidays.

**Who do you report to?**

On a day-to-day basis, you will be working under the direction of The Service and Development Manager, but accountable to a Senior Support Worker.

**The hours**

Individual needs come first, and so we need a lot of flexibility when it comes to your working hours. These will be scheduled on a rota basis with the rest of your team and can include sleep-ins; waking nights; weekends; and Bank Holidays.

**What Service Users and their families want from an Outreach Personal Assistant.**

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“We need people who like.”_**

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- Shopping trips, cinema, bowling, fitness activities. exploring our local community so we feel included.
- To travel using public transport. We might already be confident with this, but sometimes it is your role to help build our confidence and independence with going to different towns or supporting us to get on a bus or tram for the very first time i.e. Travel training.
- Day trips and holidays. We might ask you to support us to our favourite place for the weekend.
- Supporting us to have a varied healthy diet. We like learning about different foods, and how to cook more independently.
- A bit of pampering. It is your role to support us to look and feel good about ourselves.
- Talking but more importantly, listening. We need someone that is very approachable and understands our different needs and support with emotional matters.
- Dealing with daily challenges. Sometimes we can not always tell you exactly how we are feeling so we may show behaviours that are challenging when we feel ill, distressed, sad or confused. (There are support strategies in place for these times)

**“.And give us support with”**
- Keeping our house clean and tidy. I sometimes need support and encouragement to do cleaning tasks, shopping, laundry, decorating, home maintenance, gardening etc.
- Health appointments and medication. (as prescribed by the medical practitioner), in accordance with PossAbilities CIC policies and guidelines.
- Personal Care needs. Maintaining high standards of hygiene.
- Managing our tenancies, and day to day finances where applicable.
- Keeping in contact with our families, friends and anyone important to us.
- Social inclusion, opening new opportunities to start and maintain meaningful relationships.
- Seeing what new opportunities are out there. I.e. Volunteering, college courses.
- Liaising with Families, Advocates, Social Workers and Management team to make sure I am safe and happy.
- Setting and achieving our goals and aspirations.
- Living independently. We may live with our family at the moment, but it could be our goal to live independently in the future, so we need you to support us with looking for options available to us and support us to work on our independent living skills.

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**What PossAbilities want from a Personal Assistant on the Outreach Team.**

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- Someone who is dynamic and fast thinking. Every day is different.
- Passionate, kind people who have a cheery demeanour and, ‘can do’ approach.
- Positive Role models
- Someone who is confident with lone working and using own initiative.
- Someone who will build positive relationships with service users and families.
- Someone who will work under the direction of The Outreach Manager but who will take ownership and responsibility for their day to day duties.
- A great communicator. Someone who can work daily with the individuals we support and their families, but who will also liaise with Team members, Social Workers,