Age UK Nottingham & Nottinghamshire –

Advisor & Living Well Worker

Post Title:
Department:
Responsible to:
Based: / Benefits Advisor & Living Well Worker
Information, Signposting & Advice
Information, Signposting & Advice Manager
Mansfield / Pay Scale:
Hours of Work:
Tenure:
Date of issue: / £12,247 per annum
NJC 25-26(£22,658 -£23,398 p/a, FTE)
20 hours per week
Fixed term for 15 months
September 2017

PURPOSE OF THE DEPARTMENT/SERVICE

The Information, Signposting & Advice (ISA) service aims to empower individuals and support their health and wellbeing through the provision of accurate, up to date information, signposting & advice and through income maximization.

The service provides a first point of contact to members of the public including triaging enquiries, information provision and onward signposting and referral to both external organisations and other Age UK Nottingham and Nottinghamshire (Age UK Notts) services.

The service provides general and specialist advice services meeting the Age UK Brand Partnership requirements and tailored to meeting the needs of our local population. The areas of advice provided relate primarily to welfare benefits, community care, housing options, money advice, financial information and advice (for those needing to fund their own care) and local services. The service also supports the health and wellbeing of older people holding ‘guided conversations’ to consider and address all relevant areas with service users where appropriate.

With a small team of paid staff, the service works extensively with volunteers to provide services including face to face and telephone sessions and via home visits.

PURPOSE OF THE POST

We have been awarded funding from the Baily Thomas Provident Fund for a new and exciting development working with their beneficiary group; the former employees of Mansfield Brewery.We are looking for someone who can provide specialist welfare benefit and other generalist advice.The post holder will ensure that income is maximized and also use our guided conversation approach to address the individuals’ broader health and wellbeing needs and interests, including their physical and mental health, housing, care & support, emotional wellbeing and social and leisure needs. The postholder will work closely with staff at the Fund keeping them informed and updated on their work and helping individuals to apply for a range of grants provided by the fund.The post holder will also proactively market the service to the potential beneficiaries of the service to ensure that we reach as many beneficiaries as possible.

KEY DUTIES & RESPONSIBILITIES

The post holder is expected to demonstrate an acceptable level of competence in their role for each of the key duties and responsibilities listed below. Competence means demonstrating the required skills, abilities, attitude and behaviours in your work role.

Communication and Customer Service(C&C)

  1. To work closely with staff at Baily Thomas Provident fund to target potential beneficiaries and deliver a high quality service.
  2. To provide specialist advice and support in connection with welfare benefits and generalist advice and information in other areas, making internal and external referrals where appropriate to access other specialist support. Please see specialist knowledge below.
  3. Where appropriate useaholistic guided conversation approach to support service users in order to help them identify their own their needs and goals and to use this information to jointly plannext steps.
  4. To work with the ISA Manager and ISA Volunteer Co-ordinator to help assess advice enquiries into the service and allocate these to self, volunteers or to signpost and refer to other specialist agencies, internally and externally, as appropriate.

Planning and Organisation(P&O)

  1. To effectively plan and use your time to promote and deliver services, ensuring a case work is up to date and reporting requirements are met.
  2. To work with the ISA Manager to promote and develop services including, marketing activity, making community links, setting up outreach advice sessions and referral arrangements with relevant partners.

Recording & Monitoring(R&M)

  1. Use case recording systems, including our electronic customer database, Charity Log, to ensure all enquiries are recorded, dealt with and progressed in a satisfactory and professional manner.
  2. To be responsible for all your own administration including producing all correspondence associated with the role using Microsoft Word and also to support our continued shift for the administration of advice cases onto the Charity Logsystem.
  3. To ensure that all outcomes are entered onto Charity Log in a timely manner, including benefit gains that result from our advice and assistance and all instances of signposting and referral.
  4. To support the ISA Manager through the provision of data, case studies and other information as necessary to meet the monitoring and reporting requirements of the funder and for other purposes in a timely manner

Quality (Q)

  1. To ensure that all information and advice provision and case management undertaken by you is in line with the requirements of the Age UK I&A Quality Standard,other relevant quality standards and best practice, being clear and accurate.
  2. As part of the quality assurance standard to undertake file reviews for work undertaken by other staff and volunteer advisors who deliver advice on more complex matters. To support the mentoring and development of volunteer advisors and work collaboratively with same for the benefit of our service users

Charity Focus(CF)

  1. Conduct promotional activities, including giving brief presentations and talks to effectively promote your particular project, and other Age UK Notts services to ensure that their uptake is maximised and your project is a success.
  2. Maintain and develop effective working relationships with stakeholders, partners, colleagues and volunteers to support the smooth running of the service on a daily basis and enhance any partnership working opportunities.
  3. To research, maintain and share with the team a detailed knowledge of local services that can support individuals to enhance their wellbeing and to signpost and/or refer older people to those services as appropriate.

Team Work(TW)

  1. To work flexibly with other members of the wider team to ensure that key activities are delivered in an open and supportive environment.
  2. To work closely with the relevant staff in Mansfieldto deliver your project.

Specialist Knowledge(SK)

  1. To maintain a detailed knowledge of all of pertinent welfare benefits issues, researching matters as necessary, together with some knowledge of community care and housing options.
  2. To provide a specialist welfare benefits service to older people and carers. The service may be delivered on the telephone, at outreach venues and within recipients’ homes, and in response to referrals from a wide range of sources.
  3. To undertake welfare benefit checks and to advise on any additional entitlement in order to maximise the income of service users.To provide all necessary support to assist older people in claiming welfare benefits and resolving benefit issues, referring to external advice agencies in the case of appeals and tribunals.

Charity Responsibilities - Standard Clauses

Your Needs

  • You will keep under review your own developmental needs, keep yourself informed of current issues and be alert to the Age UK Notts training programmes and policies and attend all supervision meetings advised by your line manager. It is your responsibility along with your line manager to identify training and development needs and to inform your line manager of these (C&C, P&O)

Equality and Diversity

  • You will uphold the Age UK Notts Equality and Diversity policies and practices thereby promoting fair and quality services to all. If Age UK Notts deem you have breached any of these policies this may be dealt with under the disciplinary procedure. All policies can be viewed on Yammer - please ensure you refer to the Equality and Diversity Policy and the Bullying and Harassment Policy (Q, CF).

Health and Safety

  • You will take reasonable care for your health and safety and have regard to other persons who may be affected by the performance of your duties, in accordance with the provisions of Health and Safety legislation and actively encourage, promote and reinforce all Health and Safety procedures in accordance with the guidelines laid down in the Age UK Notts Health and Safety Manual (Q).
  • You will exercise proper care in handling, operating and safeguarding any equipment or appliance provided, used or issued by Age UK Notts or provided by a third party for individual or collective use in the performance of your duties (Q, C&C).

Safeguarding

  • You will raise any concerns regarding safeguarding and report all allegations of abuse in line with the Age UK Notts Safeguarding policy (Q, CF, C&C).

Customer Care

  • You will promote and deliver services in a way which is sensitive and responsive to those receiving such services and be aware of and implement the Age UK Notts customer care policies and service level agreement requirements (if applicable) (C&C, Q, CF).

Professional Integrity

  • You will maintain at all times the professional integrity of the Charity and represent its main interests in any dealings with other bodies, groups and individuals (CF, Q).

Quality Assurance

  • You will uphold and proactively contribute to the Age Organisational Quality Standard (Q, CF).

Other

  • Participate in, and promote fundraising & income generation (CF, C&C).
  • Promote all Age UK Notts services and trading products (CF).
  • You will attend staff meetings, the annual staff conference and other meetings as requested in order to keep up to date with information within the Charity (CF, C&C, Q).
  • You will provide for your line manager, weekly diary sheets and any other reports or information as required (C&C).
  • You will carry out any other specified tasks that may be reasonably required by the relevant Manager, with the proviso that any changes of a permanent nature will be included in the job description (TW).

This job description is intended as a summary of the main elements of the job described. They may be varied from time to time in consultation with the job holder without changing the general character of the duties or the level of responsibility entailed. Such variations are a common occurrence and cannot of themselves justify a reconsideration of the grading of the post.

I confirm that I have discussed the content of this Job Description with my line manager and that I understand its content.

Please indicate on enclosed application form evidence to show why you fulfil each individual point below:

Essential Requirements

Knowledge

  1. Current and detailed knowledge of the welfare benefits systems, including means tested, non-means tested, health related and carers’ benefits and also tax credits to be able to support the accurate delivery of income maximisation checks and form completions. (SK)
  2. Awareness of good advice and case management practice. (SK, Q)
  3. Understands the needs of older and vulnerable people and of the difficulties faced by disadvantaged groups in accessing information, advice and support. (SK)
  4. Knowledge of local statutory and voluntary sector services for older people and experience in liaising with a wide range of organisations. (SK, C&C).
  5. Must have an understanding of and be committed to the Age UK Notts policy on Equality and Diversity both in service delivery and service provision. (CF)

Skills/Abilities

  1. Able to deal sensitivity with people from all backgrounds, to develop trusting relationships with service users, in order to be able to elicit information, diagnose issues and then to provide appropriate advice and support.(C&C)
  2. An ability to advocate and represent the best interests of your service users and to communicate by phone, face to face, and in groups with a variety of people with excellent interpersonal skills. (C&C)
  3. Able to provide knowledgeable support to colleagues from across the organisation with advice and information enquiries to either advise them or to help them to research answers as appropriate.(TW, SK)
  4. Supportive team working skills.(TW)
  5. Ability to remain calm and effective under pressure and retain a positive attitude.(C&C)
  6. Ability to use an electronic case management system and mentor, support and train volunteers to use this consistently.(R&M, Q)
  7. Ability to produce written correspondence using Microsoft Office as required and very organized administrative skills to manage casework and provide monitoring information.(R&M, Q)
  8. Ability to organise events and give presentations and undertake other marketing activity to promote your service as required.(C&C, CF)
  9. Ability to prioritise and organize your work to maintain the I&A service and ensure all advice is provided in a timely manner.(P&O)

Experience

  1. Experience of working as a welfare rights advisor or similar.(SK)
  2. Experience of setting up services and working in partnership with others (SK)

Work Related Circumstances

  1. This role may, at times, require the post holder to work outside of normal office hours.
  2. Driving license and access to a car for the purpose of home visits, attending meetings and training.

Salary: £12,247 per annum, NJC 25-26(£22,658 -£23,398p/a, FTE)

Start Date:As soon as possible

Hours of Work:Age UK Notts consider a full-time working week to be 37 hours, Monday to Thursday 9.00 a.m. to 5.00 p.m. and 9.00 a.m. to 4.30 p.m. Friday with 30 minutes for lunch(which is unpaid).Age UK Notts operates a scheme of flexible working hours.

Holidays:24 working days (pro rated for part time hours). Employees are granted 8 Public Holidays. One additional days leave is added to the annual leave entitlement for each year of service up to a maximum of 8 additional days.

Mileage

Allowance: Currently 45p per mile.

Pension:The Charity will contribute 4% of basic salary into our NEST pension scheme after 3 months service with a phased employee minimum contribution rising to a maximum of 4% from 1st April 2019 (in line with auto-enrolment rules). However employees may contribute more than the minimum required employee contribution.

Place of Work:Mansfield, Nottinghamshire

Timetable for Appointment

Post Advertised:Thursday 21stSeptember2017

Closing Date:Tuesday 10thOctober 2017

Short-listing: Thursday12thOctober 2017

Interviews: Wednesday 18thOctober 2017

N.B. Due to financial constraints, applicants who are not short-listed will not be notified. If you have not received an invitation to attend an interview within three weeks of the closing date you may assume that your application has not been successful.