Support Worker - The Lyme Trust : Job Details

The Lyme Trust is seeking a compassionate, flexible and highly motivated individual to join our team as a Support Worker. The Lyme Trust provides safe, supported accommodation and life skills to people with mild to moderate mental health conditions with the aims of a return to independent living.

Job Purpose

• To support residents of The Lyme Trust to help them feel safe, secure, comfortable, and well supported
• To enable residents to achieve their personal social, emotional, learning, and long-term accommodation and employment goals and aspirations
• To assist residents in achieving and maintaining the highest possible level of independence, promoting personal choice and wellbeing
• To be responsible and accountable for the delivery of the highest level of support and to ensure the health and safety of all residents, staff members, trustees, visitors and Lyme Trust property

Essential Qualities and Skills

As a Support Worker at The Lyme Trust, your responsibilities are varied, and no two days are the same.

You will have excellent communication and organisational skills. You will need outstanding and empathic listening skills and a practical, caring approach. Computer literacy is necessary, as the role requires you to retrieve and record information using various IT systems.

You will be adaptive and flexible, and resilient to challenges and rejections in order to support our residents to achieve personalised outcomes. You will be assertive, consistent and reliable to maintain the stability and progression of our residents.

A bright and positive attitude is what matters most at the Lyme Trust, along with an ambition to support people to live their lives with independence, personal choice and dignity.

You will be committed to the values and principles of The Lyme Trust.

Desirable Qualities and Skills

You will have experience of working with people who have experienced homelessness, poor mental health, substance use and/or have a history of living in care. You will have experience in completing and managing risk assessments and support plans.

Key Responsibilities and Duties

Resident Support

• To extensively manage a personal caseload of residents and their individual support plans, risk assessments, and budgeting and action plans, and to identify if further support is required
• To assess and review, every four months, residents’ support needs in all aspects of their daily living, including life skills (such as cooking, cleaning, budgeting, and learning new skills), health, hygiene, hobbies, education, employment, rent, benefits, debts and personal finances, criminal behaviour, substance dependency and recovery
• To organise and implement a schedule of life skills and social activities for residents, and to actively participate in life skills workshops and activities on-site and off-site
• To provide information on and signposting internal and external resources and agencies to support residents with their plans towards a goal of independent living
• To maintain regular contact with each resident in person, in small support groups, and to encourage social and community activities, and to regular visit resident accommodation and communal areas
• To support residents in keeping their accommodation safe, secure, and clean, and carry out regular health and safety audits, and fire risk assessments, ensuring that rents are paid on time and that housing benefit claims are processed by working with the relevant departments within the Trust

Administration/Miscellaneous Tasks

• To maintain up-to-date, comprehensive and confidential documentation of all resident contact and activity (including referrals, move-ons, benefit checks, and licence agreements) on The Lyme Trust’s systems and diary and complete any incident reports
• To attend all necessary meetings and daily handovers, and to actively participate in the resident referral, induction, and move-on processes
• To maintain constant communication with all members of the staff team via the radio system, using the earpieces for safety and confidentiality
• To attend all mandatory training courses, participate in performance reviews, appraisals and supervisions
• To keep all workspaces, desks, offices and staff areas, including the kitchen and all storage and communal spaces clear and clean
• To observe and follow all Lyme Trust policies and procedures
• To carry out any other duties and responsibilities or activities that the Leadership Team may reasonably require

This is not an exhaustive list of all the responsibilities and duties that may be required from time to time and is subject to change per the needs of The Lyme Trust. This job description may, with reasonable notice, be changed or updated when deemed necessary by the Leadership Team.

Our recruitment checks, induction, and ongoing support and supervision reflect our commitment to safeguarding our staff and residents. The Lyme Trust strives to be an equal opportunities employer and welcomes applications from all sections of the community.

This is a full-time position with a 12-week probationary period. You will be working to a rota that includes some weekends and bank holidays, and be part of a 24-hour on-call system.

Next Steps

If you think you have the necessary qualities and skills that we are seeking, please get in touch. You will be invited to a panel interview at our offices in Newcastle Under Lyme, and to complete an application form.

Offers of employment will depend upon the receipt of two satisfactory references, one of whom should be your present or last employer and the successful receipt of an enhanced Disclosure and Barring report (DBS).

This is your opportunity to make a remarkable difference in people’s lives.

Job Types: Full-time, Permanent

Salary: £11.50 per hour