Homelessness Prevention Officer

Do you have a strong knowledge of housing issues within the city? Are you a confident team player, wanting to improve the lives of adults experiencing homelessness?

We are looking to hire a Homelessness Prevention Officer who will be co-located within our Enhanced Support Team, working in partnership to lead the Council's front facing response to the Rough Sleeping Programme and commitment to reduce residents experiencing rough sleeping in the city. You will be working alongside a multi-disciplinary team, focused on those experiencing rough sleeping and with multi compound need.

You will be applying the Housing Act 1996 and the Homelessness Reduction Act to support residents into settled accommodation. There will be a focus on providing a person centred and trauma informed response to support people to engage with the homeless application process and maintain or find a suitable, settled home. We are keen to hear from applicants who have insight into lived experience of homelessness and reflect the diverse make up of our city.

Grant funding is available for this post for two years.

The successful candidate will work as a dedicated team, working with partners to respond to the Rough Sleeping Programme, which looks to significantly reduce number of people experiencing rough sleeping and providing longer term sustainable housing options. This role will be flexibly based to respond to the needs of our customers. The Enhanced Support Team (EST) is a multi-disciplinary team supporting adults experiencing homelessness and multiple compound needs, including mental ill-health, substance use, physical health conditions, self-neglect and social exclusion.

The team works collaboratively with housing, health, social care and voluntary sector partners to provide intensive, person-centred support, improve engagement with services, reduce barriers to accessing accommodation and promote positive outcomes for individuals with complex needs. The Homelessness Prevention Officer will play a key role, applying the Housing Act 1996 and Homelessness Reduction Act to support some of the city's most vulnerable residents into settled accommodation.

Our city is known and loved for its diversity. Not only is the mixture of people, culture and skills vital to the economic and social development of the city, it's what makes Brighton & Hove such a great place to live, work and visit. We are committed to developing and retaining a workforce that is representative of the diverse communities we serve so we welcome applications from individuals from all backgrounds.

In order to achieve our aims of proportionate representation, we particularly encourage applicants from a BME or White Other background as well as those who identify as disabled, male or trans.

• be connected
• be confident
• be innovative and creative
• be diverse and inclusive
• be healthy and psychologically safe

For more information about our values and the benefits of working at the council, visit Why work for us which gives details of our wellbeing support, our benefits including leave and pensions as well as details of our training and development.

We are interested in hearing about your experience and skills in your own words. While we value people who know how to use AI, we ask that you minimise using it in your application. We are keen to hear how your experience and skills align to our values and the skills and experience needed to perform well in our roles with clear real examples from you.

To support you in this, we have guidance on using the STAR model which can help you ensure you are telling us your whole story. We also provide clarity on the skills we are looking for in our adverts and in the job description/person specification attached to each job advert. All the applications we receive are read by at least two hiring managers and we do not use AI in this process.

Our experience of reading applications is that those that have heavily used AI contain generic paragraphs that are strikingly similar to other applicants' responses. This makes it extremely difficult to differentiate between applications, and doesn't give us enough evidence of your individual skills. There is a risk that we will therefore not be able to shortlist you. Instead, we recommend you ensure your application stands out by presenting clear examples of your actual skills and experiences in your own words.

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