The Housing Network – Who are we?
We are The Housing Network (THN), a private limited company with a purpose. We exist to provide ‘More than a Roof’, because when life is at its toughest, we believe everyone deserves a safe and stable place to rebuild their lives.
Operating right across the UK (from Scotland to the South Coast) our team of 175+ dedicated professionals provide accommodation and support to over 5300 vulnerable individuals and families every single night – within self-contained, shared, supported and specialist scheme homes.
Alongside our 100+ Local Authorities and Ministry of Justice (MOJ) partners we work hard to design, and deliver person-centric solutions that meet the needs of our residents and in line with service specifications defined by public sector commissioners – always striving to ensure best-value and effectiveness.
We are a team that is absolutely committed to innovate, excel and be dependable in all that we do. Working hard together to achieve our mission of providing Better Accommodation, Better Support, Better Partnerships – and as a result Better Business.
This is an incredibly exciting time for The Housing Network as we embark on our Strategy 2024/29 : ‘Homelessness’ The missing Piece journey. A strategic journey that will see us expand our services to provide over 10,000 units of safe and inspiring accommodation into, with support 75% of Local Authority areas across the UK !
Role Overview – What is it?
To lead one of our local teams in the delivery of various supported housing services, including our new Active Opportunity Pathway (AOP) for those experiencing multiple disadvantage / severe multiple disadvantage and/or temporary accommodation for individuals or families.
You will be an experienced supported housing professional who is familiar with leading, supporting and managing teams (in a hands-on way) to help those experiencing multiple disadvantage or severe multiple disadvantage to overcome barriers to achieving greater independence.
You will have an in-depth knowledge of best-practice and current thinking when working with vulnerable people or families facing homelessness, who require support with mental-health, substance misuse, a history of offending and other needs. Using your knowledge and skills to help us create one of the most effective outcomes-focused services in the sector, adhering to the Making Every Adult Matter principles (MEAM).
You will be familiar with and have experience of effectively supporting teams to work in a strength-based and trauma informed way. Taking personal pride and ownership in supporting your team (and the wider department / organisation) develop those approaches in support of helping residents achieve outcomes far beyond their expectations.
You will have worked in an accommodation-based setting, with significant experience of providing intensive housing management, and tenancy management tasks. Drawing on your knowledge of safeguarding, housing benefit, Universal Credit and mental health, drug and alcohol specialist interventions to support your team to perform at the highest level, meeting and exceeding the expectations of internal and external stakeholders.
This is a new role in a specialist team and not one which will see you stepping too far back from those who we support. So you will not only be managing the team who are supporting those experiencing homelessness and multiple disadvantage, but also supporting a small complex caseload yourself.
You will be joining us at a very exciting time as we pursue significant growth across our services to develop accommodations options integrated with support, giving you a unique opportunity to use your knowledge and experience to help shape an amazing service for the future.
To act as an ambassador for The Housing Network, to promote its mission and values. Being respectful and kind is at the heart of everything that we do.
Main Duties – What needs to be done?
Staff management Elements:
• Actively support your team to deliver a high quality and the most effective and efficient service possible, ensuring they place our residents at the heart of all that they do as they help them achieve sector-leading outcomes.
• Provide a positive role model to your team as you support and motivate them to develop and progress in their role.
• Manage and administer an effective high-performance culture through regular 1:1s, objective setting and appraisals, providing additional support where necessary to overcome challenges and barriers.
• Support your team to seek out opportunities for knowledge development and skill improvement, reviewing its relevance against organisational policies and budgets.
• Participate in the ‘Managers On Call’ rota to ensure that a point of escalation is available to your team in the event of a serious incident, out of hours.
• Lead on the accurate and effective management of relevant budgets and performance to ensure optimum performance against organisational objectives.
• Fulfil all mandatory line management responsibilities (e.g. annual leave and sickness management), providing strong leadership throughout the entire employee life-cycle in accordance with the organisation’s People policies.
• Provide a safe space for reflective practice.
• Create a positive culture of inclusion where your team feel able to engage and offer constructive challenge and feedback.
• Lead on ensuring all aspects of service and property compliance and H&S are maintained at appropriate levels at all times, escalating concerns without delay to senior management.
• Lead on the monitoring and delivery of all relevant contract performance elements, supporting your team to proactively engage with the meeting (and exceeding) of those measures.
• Maintain oversight across all safeguarding matters for the service, leading on engagement with external stakeholders and multi-disciplinary teams, attending case review meetings where appropriate.
Support Elements:
• Ensure you and your team employ a strength-based and trauma-informed approach to building trusting relationships with residents, using that to help create accurate, realistic and meaningful (outcome focused) support plans.
• Use your knowledge and experience of working with people experiencing homelessness and multiple-disadvantage to support your team in identifying and capturing risks, to help design mitigation strategies and inform coping mechanisms.
• Support and challenge your team to engage pro-actively and effectively with residents to help them identify barriers which are preventing them gaining greater levels of independence.
• Uphold the highest levels of safeguarding awareness and protection for individuals, residents, colleagues and the wider community. Working within local frameworks to ensure policies and reporting mechanisms are applied correctly.
• Ensure all team members are up to date with training in line with the organisation governance framework and related policies
• Quality assure accurate records maintained by the team of all support engagements, support plans, risk assessments and other support pathway elements, using them to support appropriate partnership working with local partner agencies.
• Champion the principles of trauma-informed engagement and support across the service and wider organisation, helping colleagues develop their skills and communication approaches to support the achievement of outcomes.
• Encourage the team to take time to engage pro-actively with all residents in the scheme, using the less formal engagements to help deepen the understanding and effectiveness of support plans and achievement of outcomes.
• Work with senior leaders to engage pro-actively with local multi-disciplinary health and housing teams and network groups, seeking to maximise outcomes for individuals and build added-value into the service as a whole.
• Ensure all types of engagement with residents either individually or in group sessions, is recorded all in THN’s digital support system.
• Oversee all caseload held by the team (support plans / risk assessments) , ensuring that all residents receive and engage with appropriate amounts and types of support suitable for their needs.
• Work in a non-risk averse and non-judgemental way, helping residents understand the negative impact of their behaviours, then providing harm reduction information and advice where necessary.
• Act as a positive role model for residents and the team, using a strength-based approach to helping them set realistic (but aspirational) goals, prompting, encouraging and motivating them to make them a reality.
Intensive Housing Management:
• Work with colleagues at service and organisational level to ensure maximum levels of service utilisation and efficiency, including the processing and review of referrals in a non-risk averse and balanced community way.
• Lead on the process of referral management, support / needs / risk assessment, and recording of all relevant findings accurately in THN’s digital support management system at the first point of resident contact.
• Ensure that the team supports residents to understand and complete all necessary tenancy documentation and service entry requirements, recording them as required in THN’s various housing management systems.
• Support the team to take ownership of any rent management matters for residents, helping them to understand the importance of appropriate money management and to take necessary action to avoid arears, which will involve administration of housing benefit claims.
• Support the team with welfare benefit queries and money management skills to maximise rental income,
• Ensure regular accommodation inspections are completed, encouraging the team to use this opportunity to help residents develop further independent living skills (e.g. reporting of repairs) whilst ensuring all necessary compliance and Health and Safety requirements are met.
General Elements:
• Proactively engage in the wider supported housing / homelessness pathway network within the service area, balancing workload / time to ensure engagement is manageable and effective.
• Accurately prepare KPI / performance reports and data in line with commissioning agreements, using that data to inform contract monitoring processes.
• Engage within all relevant organisational KPI / performance management processes, preparing and presenting data and reports as required.
• Maintain all aspects of operational performance at the highest levels, working in a timely / innovative way to address any issues of underperformance.
Relationships – Who will I be working / engaging with?
• Internal – Other AOP service colleagues (e.g., concierge, support workers) / Maintenance and Facilities Teams / Head of Service and Senior Leadership Team / Residents.
• External – Local Authority Commissioners and Housing Officers / Third Sector Partners / Statutory Partners (e.g., Police and Probation) / Housing Benefit Officers / DWP and Employment Partners etc.
Competencies – Who with and your skill level?
• Experience of leading a team in a supporting people setting
• Extensive and demonstratable knowledge and experience of working with people (including families) experiencing homelessness and multiple disadvantage such as mental health, drug and alcohol
• Extensive and demonstratable experience of working in an accommodation-based service, with specific reference to effective rent management, housing benefit and accessing positive move-on options.
• Proven abilities to work in a strength-based and trauma-informed way for the benefit of individuals and families, helping them to achieve a level of positive housing, health and wellbeing outcomes beyond their expectations.
• Experience of quality assurance in relation to completing and managing accurate support plans and risk assessments, which inform design and implementation of engaging and impactful support activities for Families and singe people.
• Extensive and demonstratable knowledge and experience of maintaining the highest standards of safeguarding for vulnerable people.
• Comfortable and familiar with working in a non-risk averse way.
• Knowledge and experience of best-practise and current approaches (e.g. adverse childhood experiences) to deliver effective intervention and therapeutic engagements for people with mental health and drug and alcohol support needs.
• Highly developed ICT skills and familiarity with digital support management systems, and personal abilities and focus on maintaining accuracy at all times.
• Excellent written / verbal communications skills, with the confidence to engage with external partners and stakeholders for the benefit of residents, the service and organisation as a whole.
General and Additional
• The responsibilities contained within this job description are indicative, but not exhaustive. As the role develops, the requirements of the post may change, and as such the post is subject to review in discussion with the post holder.
• The post holder may be required to undertake other duties from time to time as the organisation may reasonably require which are commensurate with the grade of the post.
• The post holder shall comply with the organisation’s policies and procedures, ensuring appropriate actions and reporting protocols are followed at all times.
• The post holder shall attend regular staff or other related meetings, contributing positively where appropriate and relevant.
• Extensive travel across the UK will be required from time to time to support the delivery of role requirements, with you holding a full UK driving licence and access to private vehicle for business use when required.
• An Enhanced Disclosure is required for this position.
