Senior Practitioner

Job Summary

Role: Senior Practitioner – Rapid Response Team

Salary: £39,518 per annum

Contract: Fixed term until 30/09/2026

Hours: 37.5 per week

Location: Across London

Closing date: 30/11/2025

Interview date: 15/12/2025

Whatever your experience of street homelessness and its impact on people's lives – personal or professional – when you join the Thames Reach team as a Senior Practitioner, we will make the best use of all your understanding, compassion and commitment

About us…

Thames Reach runs projects and services that help to end homelessness in and around London. We work directly with homeless people on the streets and in hostels. We work to prevent vulnerable people from becoming homeless. We help formerly homeless people get their lives back on track. We help people find work and access training and volunteering opportunities.

Is our mission easy? No, but we never give up on people. Last year we helped more than 15,000 people.

Is our work rewarding? Yes, in every sense. We're listed as one of the top 100 Best Workplaces in the UK. There's no better place to develop or transfer your skills and build a fulfilling career.

About this role…

We are looking for a Senior Practitioner to join the Rapid Response team.

The Rapid Response Outreach Team responds to reports of rough sleeping every night of the year, across London and work flexibly to reach London's most vulnerable.

We aim to quickly find realistic accommodation options for everyone we find sleeping on the streets. The team also delivers a service across the Transport for London network, responding to referrals and proactively looking for people sleeping rough across the network and supporting them to find a route away from the streets.

We will not accept applications where Artificial Intelligence (AI) has been used to assist with completing the competency questions.

You will:

• Work alongside the service manager and other senior practitioners to improve and manage the service effectiveness, and performance against the contract. Provide accurate reports and timely information to support the monitoring of the project's KPIs
• Be responsible for directly managing a team of outreach workers and overseeing casework practice including conducting supervisions and appraisals. Ensure the team are focused on rapidly finding and assessing new rough sleepers and finding safe accommodation options where possible.
• Maintain good working relationships with partner organisations including local authority leads and local outreach teams. Represent the service at multi-agency meetings and work with partners to maximise the impact we are able to achieve in their boroughs.
• Continuously improve team performance through monitoring and weekly joint outreach shifts with team members, modelling good practice and coaching staff to maximise the number of people found on shift. This requires 1-2 night shifts per week.
• Reporting incidents to senior management and commissioners and ensuring staff are aware of and working to health and safety guidelines.
• Be involved in ensuring the finances of the service are well managed and that the team is compliant with all relevant policies.

You will have:

• Good understanding of the issues involved in managing support services to a range of vulnerable people.
• Experience in managing a team that works effectively with clients' challenging and difficult behaviour, and successfully engages with clients with a range of support needs, using an outcome-based approach.
• Experience in managing change processes, ensuring the team still delivers a strategically relevant service.
• Experience of managing and sustaining relationships with colleagues, funders, other organisations and service users.
• Experience of working independently using own initiative whilst remaining accountable to line management.
• Excellent written and verbal communication skills

We are listed in the top 100 UK Best Workplaces 2023 in the UK. As part of a commitment to our employees we offer:

• Generous holiday allowance – 29 days per year plus 8 public holidays (pro rata).
• Pension – we contribute 6.5% to your pension when you contribute 1.5%.
• Excellent development opportunities – career progression, regular supervision and appraisals, and learning programmes to support your career with Thames Reach.
• Wellbeing support – our 24/7 employee assistance programme and opportunities for TOIL.
• Life assurance – four times your annual salary and critical illness cover.
• Other benefits including a blue light discount card, interest free season ticket and cycle to work loans.

Thames Reach is committed to achieving a diverse workforce that reflects the communities we serve. We value, respect, and celebrate diversity. We welcome and encourage applicants from all sections of the community regardless of their history of homelessness, sex, race, disability, age, sexual orientation, or religious belief.

To apply visit our website and complete our application form.

For further information please contact, Anneke Ziemen, Service Manager at

Thames Reach is committed to safeguarding. Applicants must be willing to undergo pre-employment screening appropriate to the post, including, but not limited to checks with past employers and the Disclosure and Barring Service. Having a criminal record will not exclude you from applying but you will be asked to provide further details as most posts are considered exempt from the Rehabilitation of Offenders Act 1974.

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