Accommodation Advisor

**Accommodation Advisor**

**Role Title**: Accommodation Advisor

**Base**: Warwickshire

**Reporting to**:Service Manager

**Contract Type**: Permanent

**Hours**: 37 hrs per week

**Salary**: £23,405.97 per annum

YSS enables people to be emotionally resilient; to thrive and feel they belong to a community. We uphold people’s rights and responsibilities and enable them to exercise these with dignity and respect.

Since 2003, YSS has been delivering rehabilitation and resettlement services to adults in the Criminal Justice System. In partnership with NACRO, YSS deliver accommodation services to those on a probation community order, or custodial license across Warwickshire, Herefordshire, Worcestershire, Shropshire, and Telford & Wrekin. Our accommodation services include prison pre and post release support

Our aim is to break down the barriers to maintaining, or securing, suitable and settled accommodation, including difficulties accessing social housing or securing accommodation within the private rental sector due to having served a prison sentence, financial hurdles and/or a lack of knowledge/experience to navigate the housing market.

**The Role**:
As an Accommodation Advisor you will provide structured, tailored, one-to-one, rehabilitation and resettlement information, advice, and guidance to individuals on a custodial license and under supervision in the community. The support provided aims to help individuals overcome barriers to obtaining and retaining secure and stable accommodation so that they can successfully reintegrate into society.

Your role will principally work with individuals managed in the relevant probation delivery units, offering a mixture of face to face and remote working. Your primary base will be determined by the area closest to where you reside and there will be an expectation that you work from the probation offices that you cover, with the flexibility of some remote working. Mileage costs will be paid from your base to other offices.

There is an expectation for the team to also support delivery in other areas, within our service, according to need, to include community and prison based support.

**Summary of Key Responsibilities**
- Support service users to sustain, maintain or break down barriers to accommodation.
- Carry out accommodation needs assessments.
- Record, monitor and review progress against individual and service objectives, to demonstrate impact and outcomes achieved.
- Enable and motivate service users to identify and achieve desired accommodation outcomes.
- Actively engage with service users to obtain feedback around decisions that affect them.
- Risk assess and take the necessary actions in respect of any activities/engagement undertaken with service users including personal safety, lone-working and safeguarding.
- Understand professional boundaries and ensure that your role and remit is made clear to all service users you engage with.
- Work collaboratively in multi-agency settings as required. This includes maintaining professional relationships and appropriate levels of confidentiality of information.
- Meet individual performance targets and contribute towards meeting team performance targets in respect of the service.
- Provide cover for other team members of the Accommodation Advisor Team including working within a prison setting.
- Maintain up to date records via relevant and appropriate systems within specified timeframes and produce reports as required.

Notes:

- YSS operates in a fast-moving environment and may from time to time vary the content of this job description after consultation to reflect changes to the job, without altering the general character of the post or level of responsibility.
- The duties described in this job description must be carried out in a manner which promotes equality of opportunity, dignity and due respect for all employees, volunteers and service users and is consistent with YSS policies.
- It is expected that weekend and evening work will be a feature of the role from time to time and will be a requirement of the post holder.
- There will be regular travel across Worcestershire and Herefordshire, and occasional travel across other geographical areas that YSS deliver services in, therefore access to a car is essential.
- _You must have the right to live and work in the UK to be considered for this role._

**Accommodation Advisor - Competencies**

**Skills & experience**
- Knowledge and experience of supporting individuals in a prison setting, on a custodial license or community order, and/or experience of supporting individuals with an accommodation need.
- Ability to manage high caseloads with differing complexities of support needs
- Good literacy and numeracy skills.

**Communications and collaboration**
- Communicates appropriately and consistently across multiple stakeholder groups
- Prioritizes activities to meet service users’ needs,
- Builds professional relationships and networks based on trust
- Ca