Homelessness Prevention Navigator Officer - London, United Kingdom - Islington Council

Islington Council

Verified Company

London, United Kingdom

3 weeks ago

Posted by:

Tom O´Connor

beBee Recruiter

Description

The Navigator post is office/outreach based 3 days a week and work from home 2 days.

We will look for our employees to:

To work as part of an award winning innovative Early Homelessness Prevention Service operating across the 6 boroughs that make up the North London Housing Partnership (namely London Boroughs. of Barnet, Camden, Enfield, Haringey, Islington & Westminster
To act as a dedicated resource to develop and build upon boroughs' existing good practice around providing homelessness prevention earlier upstream, working specifically with key agencies to identify and assist people at high risk of homelessness.
The post will be based in one of the 6 boroughs.
1st post Camden / 2nd post Floating Navigator officer

You will work with key agencies on a range of specific intervention projects.

You will be expected to deliver targeted advice, assistance and support to clients threatened with homelessness; carry out weekly outreach surgeries; and provide clients with a written record of advice in the form of a Personal Housing Plans.

You will be directly responsible for managing a caseload of clients and collating data related to each intervention project.

You will be expected to support the Service Co-ordinator in developing plans for individual intervention projects and making any service improvements to ensure the overall successful delivery of the Service.

We are looking for someone who have experience of working within a high performing frontline housing service with a trauma informed approach and have extensive experience of delivering advice and support to prevent homelessness, along with up-to-date detailed knowledge of homelessness legislation, guidance and case law.

You must be able to demonstrate your ability of building effective working relationships; have excellent communications and organisational skills and be able to deliver a tailored service based on the individual needs of the client.

Please note that the post will require a willingness to travel across boroughs for client visits/outreach sessions as necessary.

The EHPS team is an award-winning service currently in its 4th year of operation. The team is made up of unique individuals who operate a trauma informed approach when dealing with clients. The caseload is varied. The EHPS team work across six London boroughs with a Navigator focussing on early homelessness prevention.

The team are dispersed and as such this post requires someone who is confident and able to work on their own initiative.

The post will require the Navigator to work on various projects within the North London Housing Partnership.

Closing date:
Sunday 17th December 2023 at 23:59

Interview date:
Early January 2024

If you would like to informally discuss this post, please contact either Tracey Hamilton - Coordinator - Early Homelessness Prevention Service on or Lesley Mallett - NLHP Co-ordinator on

To develop and maintain relationships, working with a range of key agencies in identifying clients at high risk of homelessness to ensure early intervention and improve the likelihood of successful homeless prevention.

To support the Service Co-ordinator and individual borough leads in identifying those key agencies where this would most add value.

Key agencies already identified where specific intervention projects will look to assist include:

Key institutions (prisons; psychiatric wards, hospitals)
Primary Care & Support agencies
Letting Agents/Landlords (preventing the ending of ASTs

To work with each borough lead in building upon existing and set up new referral pathways and outreach within identified key agencies, along with the criteria for a range of housing solutions.

To deliver targeted advice, assistance and support to clients threatened with homelessness, managing a personal caseload of at least 110 clients each year.

Types of prevention activity expected to be carried out by the post holder include:

Challenging inappropriate evictions
Landlord negotiations
Signposting to employment support
Helping to expedite/ challenge/ assist with HB claims/ delays
Benefits, Debt and Welfare Advice
Family mediation
Explore housing options via rent deposits and other scheme

To carry out weekly outreach surgeries to provide a holistic housing and support needs assessment, providing housing and welfare advice and signposting to identified pathways, as well as direct homelessness prevention assistance where appropriate.

To provide clients with a written record of the advice and guidance provided, along with actions agreed, so serving to pilot the Personal Housing Plans.

To work with statutory and voluntary partners to maintain effective pathways for all customers.

To provide training and support to enable staff within each of the key agencies to identify early warning signs of homelessness and ways to prevent it.

To be responsible for collating all data related to each intervention project in ord