Main Responsibilities

Job Description
Job title: / Co-productionWorker (Part Time 0.5 WTE)
Responsible to: / Housing First Outreach Worker
Responsible for: / Not Applicable
Hours of Work: / 17.5 hoursper week
Length of Contract / 12 months
Location: / Office base and outreach work in Leeds area
Salary and benefits: / Salary NJC Scale 2013 SCP 26 £22,443 pro-rata
Holiday entitlement is 27 days p.a. pro rata plus bank holidays
4% contributing pension

Main purpose of job:To ensure female sex workers experiencing complex and multiple issues in their lives, engaged with the ‘Housing First’ model are able to actively participate in co-production activities.The project takes a non-mandatory, person-centred support providing outreach and case management, working with the West Yorkshire Finding Independence programme and Foundation Housing as key partners. Thepost holder will be responsible for ensuring that women sex working and receiving Housing First Services will be provided with the opportunity to co-design and deliver the project.. The Co-production Worker will take a creative approach to engaging women in involvement activities and link with the existing Co-production programme and ‘Experts by Experience’ in WYFi.

Main Responsibilities

Deliver co-production activities with women engaged with Basis’ Housing First project
Support the development of the ‘Housing First’ model to enable service users to design the service they receive
Ensure that activities and service delivery are constantly evaluated with the views of service users at the centre
Support the project lead (Housing First Outreach Worker) to deliver high quality services that meet the needs of sex working women.
Produce resources to enable women to better manage their tenancies
Work closely with West Yorkshire Finding Independence project (WYFi) to ensure that co-production activities are complementary
Work to the Housing First Co-production Outreach worker engaging with and developing ‘experts by experience’ to ensure co-production is embedded within the project.
Work alongside Foundation Housing as key partner to enable co-production.
To form and maintain professional, supportive relationships with women involved in sex work.
To support the Basis Sex Work Project in the delivery and coordination of the Leeds ‘Ugly Mugs’ scheme, taking reports from women when needed
To maintain good professional practice and ensure ongoing development, through use of supervision and training.
To be committed to working within a small team in a supportive and constructive way.
To adhere to Basispolicies including equal opportunities.
To contribute towards agency monitoring and development through statistics and other administrative duties as appropriate.
To advise other professionals about good practice related to working with women involved in, or at risk of becoming involved in, sex work.

Specific Duties

Direct client work

Creatively engage with women receiving support from Basis’ Housing First project to enable co-production, using a variety of approaches and methods
Engage with sex working women experiencing housing issues to identify key issues and develop solutions
Work closely with partners delivering services as part of the WYFi consortium and wider partners who can meet the needs of sex working women with multiple and complex needs.
Identify and support community experts by experience to advice on the initiative ensuring they have appropriate training
Work within a harm reduction approach to drug taking and safe sex working - no requirement that women adhere to an abstinence-based approach to retain housing.
To fulfil targets and objectives set by the project.
To carry out all these duties within the health and safety, safeguarding and other Basis policies, guidelines and codes of conduct.
To provide reports for other agencies when this is requested by the client as part of the workers support for her.
Practical tenancy skills support: to develop their ability to sustain accommodation.

Specialist debt and benefits advice: to ensure income maximisation and tenancy sustainment.

Employment, training and education opportunities to counter, in particular, potential social isolation caused by living in dispersed accommodation
To undertake any additional duties, as directed by the Line Manager that are commensurate with this post.

Professional practice and development

To attend regular supervision sessions with their line manager and external supervision as per agreement.
To ensure regular, quality supervision is provided to the staff member allocated to the project
To take responsibility for managing own caseload and project development, using personal initiative and making day-to-day decisions.
To provide advice, information and reports on the work of the Housing First project in order to influence partners and make changes to systems and processes, generated through co-production.
To participate in research, monitoring and development undertaken by the organisation, by carrying out data collection, needs assessment, report writing and evaluation etc. as required.
To respect the confidentiality of clients using the service (within the Boundaries of Basis confidentiality policy) and to be responsible for the security of personal and confidential information held both on paper and electronically.
To maintain up to date statistics for the purpose of monitoring, needs assessment and evaluation.
To have day-to-day responsibility for adhering to the organisations policies.
To keep up to date with research and practice and undertake regular training to maintain and develop the skills and knowledge necessary for this post.

3. Partnership Work and Networking

To maintain good public relations on behalf of the organisation.
To work collaboratively with WYFI and Foundation Housing as the key delivery partners
To attend relevant forums, networksand meetings as appropriate, particularly those relating to WYFi and housing.
To engage with a network of partner agencies who want to support this initiative and improve housing responses to needs of sex workers
Work closely with WYFi to empower and enable women to achieve positive outcomes.
Work closely with Foundation Housing to identify better ways of supporting women
Work closely withhousing providers, hostels and homelessness services.
Support the development of knowledge about migrant women, sex working and their particular needs in relation to housing.
Participate in the SaferLeeds Sex Worker Care Planning Group & Leeds Sex Work Practitioners Forum, WYFI locality meetings and Multi Agency Referral Boards (MARBs).
Support women to attend meetings, deliver briefings, training and presentations as required to professional groups, voluntary and statutory agencies to share learning about the project and identify change (as appropriate)

Team

To attend team, management, and other meetings as required.
To assist in the development and updating of the organisational policies as required.
To maintain a flexible approach to work, to ensure consistency in meeting the service users needs.
Supervise, motivate and monitor staff member and volunteers in their work.

Co-production Worker 0.5 WTE v1.0 FINAL GS