Housing First Worker

**About the role**

The Housing First Worker provides person centred coaching, housing related support, information and advice to women of the TLA Housing First service.

The Housing First Worker acts as the key worker for a small group of Housing First clients. The anticipated staff-to-client ratio is one staff member to five women.

Clients of Housing First will be women who are rough sleeping, homeless or at imminent risk of rough sleeping; they may present as challenging and are likely to have multiple disadvantages which make finding, securing and maintaining accommodation extremely difficult. The service will respond to the unique housing and support needs of sex-working women.

Staff will work to engage women who have a history of disengaging from services, using a variety of techniques and approaches to build a relationship and develop a support plan. Staff will meet the woman’s needs first in supporting them to reach their personalised goals, make informed decisions, and achieve a greater level of stability and independence.

All activity will be underpinned by the Housing First principles:
1. People have a right to a home

2. Flexible support is provided for as long as it is needed

3. Housing and support are separated

4. Individuals have choice and control

5. The service is based upon people’s strengths, goals and aspirations

6. An active engagement approach is used

7. A harm reduction approach is used

Staff are expected to work flexible hours in line with the needs of the women. Therefore, on occasion work will be required outside of the conventional working week.

**Duties and Responsibilities**
- Work with women to empower them to articulate their goals and aspirations offering personal, therapeutic and emotional support. The work will be informed by core Housing First principles.
- Undertake comprehensive needs and risk assessments with each woman. Adopt a Trauma Informed approach to supporting women including use of learning from reflective practice.
- Develop and maintain relationships with women to enable person-centred support promoting choice and wellbeing. This will be done through regular contact including visits to women’s homes and appropriate community settings. This may involve contact and work with domestic animals.
- Be adaptive and flexible, resilient to challenges, to support the stability and progression of women in order to achieve personalised outcomes.
- Liaise with accommodation providers and actively encourage women to move into appropriate Housing First accommodation of their choice.
- To identify barriers of accommodation and managing tenancies and to provide support including practical help with furniture, benefits advice, budgeting, neighbour relations and liaising with landlords.
- To offer advice, guidance and support on ways in which substance misuse and other harmful activities can be practiced more safely. This includes anticipating and supporting the reduction of harmful challenges whist maximising opportunities.
- Be empowered and persistent in advocating for the women to access all services, including reconciliation work with agencies if required.
- Develop, maintain and coordinate effective working relationships with external agencies, promoting effective communication for and about clients ensuring the Housing First service is widely known and promoted.
- With client’s consent, liaise with other agencies to facilitate access to support including Substance Misuse and Recovery, Offending and Criminal Justice, Health and Mental Health, Domestic Abuse, Welfare and Housing Benefits, Debt, Child and Adult Protection, Employment and Training.
- Identify cases requiring further help (specialist advice, alternative support) referring and supporting engagement as appropriate.
- Support women to access community resources to develop positive peer networks and meaningful leisure opportunities, for example social, recreational, sport, faith, learning, arts. - Regularly review the person-centred support plan to update, record and monitor progress of each client.
- To maintain accurate case files including accurate written records on women worked with. - Actively participate in achieving key performance indicator targets as set by the service management group.
- Contribute to regular reports on the service and the service evaluation project as required.
- To work within, adhere to and promote TLA’s Safeguarding procedures to ensure that clients are safe from harm and abuse.
- Work at all times as part of a team, this includes working with other staff, attending team and staff meetings and developing a teamwork approach to all aspects of the organisation’s work.
- Be and active participant in Training, supervision, performance management, appraisal and wellbeing initiatives in line with the organisation’s performance management policies and procedures.

**Key Outcomes**

1. Women have and maintain a home of their own

2. Women have every opportunity to id