Upstream Practitioner

Term time only, 37.5 hours per week, working 41 weeks per year

Salary: £26,403.93-£32,238.68 per year, including paid annual leave

Based within a Manchester school

Reporting to Senior Upstream Practitioner

Delivering early intervention programme to prevent youth homelessness

Competitive salary, training, development, and staff benefits

Contract:

Fixed-term, two-year contract

Hours:

Term time only, 37.5 hours per week, working 41 weeks per year — 39 term-time weeks plus two additional weeks

Salary: £26,403.93-£32,238.68 per year, including paid annual leave.

Location:

Based within a Manchester school

Closing date:
Monday 16th November 2026

Interviews:
Week commencing 23rd November 2026

Centrepoint, the UK’s leading youth homelessness charity, is looking for a passionate and proactive Upstream Practitioner to join our team based in Manchester.

Centrepoint is the UK’s leading youth homelessness charity. We help vulnerable young people by giving them the practical and emotional support they need to find a job and live independently. We provide homeless young people with accommodation, mental health support and life skills to help them get back into education, training and employment.

We want to end youth homelessness by 2037.

Together with our partners, we support over 16,000 young people each year.

We have an exciting opportunity for an Upstream Practitioner to join our Policy and Prevention Directorate on a fixed-term, two-year contract. This school-based role will report to the Senior Upstream Practitioner and play a key part in delivering our pre-16 prevention pilot, helping to identify and address the root causes of youth homelessness.

Working closely with colleagues, school staff, children and their families, you will support early intervention and prevention activities, ensuring that children at risk receive the help they need before reaching crisis point.

You will join Upstream at an important stage in its development. Alongside delivering direct support, you will contribute to a wider Quasi-Experimental Design (QED) evaluation, helping us build robust evidence about the impact of early intervention on young people’s risk of homelessness and other outcomes. Through high-quality data collection, monitoring outcomes and delivering the intervention consistently, you will help shape our understanding of what works in preventing youth homelessness.

This is a term-time position, working 37.5 hours per week within a Manchester school. The role follows a 41-week working pattern, comprising 39 term-time weeks plus two additional weeks. The advertised annual salary reflects this working pattern and includes paid annual leave.

• Delivering a school-based early intervention programme aimed at preventing youth homelessness, ensuring a consistent approach that supports the wider evaluation.
• Administering the Upstream Survey to children aged 11–16 to help identify hidden risk factors.
• Managing and maintaining a caseload of children and families, carrying out holistic assessments to understand children’s wellbeing, relationships and home life, and working proactively with them and their families before issues escalates to crisis point.
• Working closely with schools, families and community services to support sustained positive outcomes.
• Collecting and recording high-quality data, monitoring outcomes and tracking progress to support the QED evaluation and continuous service improvement.

• Experience supporting children and families in a support role.
• Excellent communication skills and the ability to build trusted relationships with children, families and professionals.
• Strong skills in completing risk assessments and managing safeguarding concerns, alongside a…