Homeless Early Intervention Officer

Homeless Early Intervention Taking an Upstream Approach to Preventing Homelessness and reduce reoffending

Join us as a Criminal Justice Homeless Early Intervention Officer and make a huge difference in your community.

Wiltshire Council have recently created a new and exciting Homeless Early Intervention team focusing on supporting households identified as being at high risk of becoming threatened with homeless by providing upstream and pre-preventative holistic support.

As a Criminal Justice lead, you'll have the chance to work from one of our hubs located in Trowbridge, Chippenham, or Salisbury as well as being expected to provide outreach advice and support in our communities across the county. There will be opportunities to work in a variety of environments such as Wiltshire Probation offices, community drop-in centres and customers homes to target the support to the hardest to reach households in our community.

As a Criminal Justice Homeless Early Intervention Officer, you will provide vital advice and support to our clients who have been through the criminal justice system, empowering them to understand their tenure right, maintain their housing, and preventing homelessness. From supporting with maximising income and budgeting, to preventing family exclusion by mediation, to connecting them with essential services. You'll adopt a trauma informed approach and play a crucial role in integrating our customers back into the community and navigating them through the challenges of the current cost‑of‑living and housing crisis.

We're seeking candidates with an innovative and creative approach, capable of effectively handling challenging customers resistant to change.

Why us?

Wiltshire Council is a friendly, welcoming place to work, with a 'One Council' ethos. Thats why we focus on getting the things that matter to our people right.

Homeless Early Intervention officers will deliver assertive and proactive advice and support to promote a pre‑prevention approach to mitigate the risk of households from becoming homeless across Wiltshire. Officers will provide a comprehensive advisory and support service to households who are at high risk of becoming threatened with homelessness, to empower them to develop the skills required to become resilient and independent in the community.

The Officers will be required to build and maintain positive relationships with a wide range of partners in both the voluntary and statutory sectors to effectively focus their interventions to the hardest to reach communities, and those households at the highest risk of becoming homeless across the Wiltshire area. Early Intervention Officers will be required to participate in housing drop‑ins across different sites within the community to promote an accessible service.

This may include environments such as hospitals and community drop‑ins. It is integral for the role to be confident in their negotiation and mediation skills as they will be leading on a mediation intervention, trying to rebuild strained relationships between customers and their friends/relatives so they are able to remain in their home. This will require the officer to adopt trauma‑informed practice.

• Qualified to HNC with professional support and advice qualification (such as NVQ Level 3 in Advice and Guidance) or relevant experience
• An advanced working knowledge of welfare benefits
• Advanced knowledge of personal finance i.e. budgeting, debt management
• A proven track record of multi‑agency work
• Initiating contacts and making effective contribution to meetings
• Experience of performing mediation interventions
• Excellent communication and negotiation skills especially when working with customers who may be angry, aggressive, upset and distressed
• Understand data protection and confidentiality and the need for accurate and timely recording
• Understanding of current social housing policies and initiatives
• Experience of working in a housing or similar environment
• Self‑sufficient in planning and organising own work, including recording, storing and retrieving required data and information
• Detailed…