Homelessness Substance Misuse Recovery Worker

We are The Forward Trust (formerly RAPt and Blue Sky), the social enterprise with charitable status that empowers people to break the often interlinked cycles of crime and addiction to move forward with their lives. For more than 25 years we have been working with people to build positive and productive lives, whatever their past. We believe that anyone is capable of lasting change. Our services have supported thousands of people to make positive changes and build productive lives with a job, family, friends and a sense of community.

Riverside is a group of complementary businesses driven by a clear social purpose, with a charitable housing association at its core. Established over 90 years ago, it has grown to become a major provider of affordable housing, care and support services in England and Scotland, with almost 56,000 homes in management. Operating at scale across over 160 local authorities, with a vision to transform the lives of the 90,000+ people it houses and revitalise the neighbourhoods in which they live. Riverside transforms lives by providing well maintained, good quality affordable housing whilst creating opportunities to increase household income through its programmes of employment, affordable warmth and money advice. Through its housing, care and support services it enables people facing a wide variety of challenging circumstances to lead more resilient and independent lives. Also, it revitalises neighbourhoods by building new homes, creating and maintaining green spaces and bringing people together through wide-ranging community engagement programmes.

This is a specialist role that will work alongside all relevant departments within the Riverside team located in Acre Lane, Brixton. Working within an integrated framework to provide support to homeless drug and alcohol users aged 18 and over. The roles main responsibilities will be to provide:

• Relapse prevention support
• Signposting referrals on to other agencies that can provide support
• Support and upskill the team through providing expert advice and substance misuse awareness training to the team at Riverside

Within a Trauma Informed Care (TIC) framework, you will deliver client centred support using both harm reduction and abstinence-based treatment approaches depending on the requirements of the individual client. You will be required to provide appropriate harm reduction advice and guidance, assess, care plan; deliver structured 1:1 and group-work sessions. Through-care and integration with other services such as Healthcare services, Probation and Housing Options Teams where required are an essential element of the work.

You will be responsible for contributing to the targets set by Forward and Riverside. One of the key targets will be measuring outcomes, so co-operative working relationships with other partner agencies is vital to this role.

Flexibility will be required in this role and may include some evening/weekend work.

• Experience of working within the substance misuse services. 
• Experience of carrying out comprehensive assessments, risk management plans and the design and implementation of SMART care plans. 
• Good experience of delivering harm reduction interventions 
• Experience of delivering structured interventions to service users. 
• Experience of facilitating groups. 
• Using motivational interviewing techniques in both 1:1 and group settings. 
• Strong IT skills. 
• Understanding of continuity of care, holistic care needs and community services 
• Knowledge of the issues facing substance misusers and people experiencing homelessness. 
• Knowledge of harm reduction relating to different substances, drug combinations, routes of use and interactions with different mental illnesses. 
• Knowledge of the Recovery Agenda. 
• Knowledge of Safeguarding 
• A knowledge and understanding of Trauma Informed Care (TIC) and Psychologically Informed Environments (PIE) 
• Previous experience of working with people sleeping rough and experiencing homelessness 
• A thorough knowledge of and commitment to the 12-step process of recovery from addiction. 
• Knowledge of Community Support Services 
• Knowledge of the criminal justice sector 
• Personal experience of addiction/imprisonment (Addicts in recovery should have at least 3 years clean time. Ex-prisoners should have been released at least 5 years ago). 
• Previous experience of working within a community or a prison setting. 
• Utilising clinical supervision. 
• Knowledge of NHS health and wellbeing outcomes. 

• Training opportunities and career development
• Flexible working
• Season Ticket Loan Scheme
• Cycle to Work Scheme
• 25 days (rising to 30 with length of service) Annual Leave plus Bank Holidays
• Contributory Pension Scheme – Employer matched contributions of up to 6% in the first two years’ service and up to 9% thereafter
• Death in Service Payment (2x annual salary)
• Critical Illness Insurance (subject to qualifying criteria)

#supportworker #addiction #criminaljustice #recovery