Specialist Support Worker - Community Integration lead – Look Ahead Care and Support, Kingston

We’re looking for a compassionate and resilient Specialist Support Worker, Community Integration lead, to join our Forensic Mental Health service located in Kingston. 

£32,000.00 per annum, working 40 hours per week.  

Want to feel like you have an exciting future? You’ll feel at home here. 

Making you feel at home here means helping you thrive in every way. That’s why we offer a wide range of benefits, award-winning Learning & Development and a culture that welcomes all. These aren’t token gestures - we’ve thought long and hard about how best to support our team. After all, our people are doing something amazing: helping to transform lives every day.

• Annual leave increasing up to 30 days with length of service
• A generous pension – we will contribute up to 8% and life assurance cover up to 3x Pensionable Salary (T&Cs apply)
• Exclusive discounts and cashback via Reward Gateway® and opportunity to buy a Blue Light Card
• Fully paid induction programme and further training
• ILM courses and Apprenticeship Programmes
• Cycle to work scheme
• Employee Assistance Programme for 24-7 confidential support
• Online wellbeing resources
• Quarterly Staff Awards to reward & recognise our amazing staff’s commitment and contribution
• Free DBS 

All applicants must be legally eligible to work in the UK by the start of employment as Look Ahead are not able to offer sponsorship. 

The role of the Integration Lead is to provide high-quality specialist support and lead the service's approach to community reintegration, helping customers move from secure hospital routines towards safe, meaningful and increasingly independent lives in the community

What you’ll do:  

This is not an exhaustive list of all the duties and responsibilities that may be required from time to time and is subject to change in accordance with the needs of Look Ahead  

• Hold a small keyworking caseload and co-produce support, risk, crisis, relapse-prevention and progression plans. 
• Build strong, boundaried relationships with customers who may be ambivalent, anxious about change or difficult to engage. 
• Map and build relationships with community organisations, ensuring the service has real routes into local life rather than a list of leaflets in an office drawer. 
• Assess barriers to community participation, including confidence, institutionalisation, stigma, transport, finances, social anxiety, statutory restrictions and risk-related concerns. 
• Develop graded plans that move from accompanied activity to independent use of local services, travel, leisure, education, volunteering, faith, cultural and social opportunities. 
• Work with FOS and colleagues to plan proportionate positive risk-taking and community access, including clear contingencies where needed. 
• Monitor mental state, behaviour, dynamic risk and protective factors, escalating meaningful changes promptly. 
• Coach colleagues in community-focused rehabilitation and share practical tools, contacts and learning across the team. 
• Work closely with the Activities Coordinator / Community Link so individual progression plans and the service-wide activity programme reinforce one another. 
• Track participation, confidence, independence and other meaningful outcomes so the team can see what is changing and where support needs to adapt.

What you’ll bring: 

Essential:

• Experience supporting adults with complex mental health, social care, housing or criminal-justice needs. 
• An engaging, persistent and respectful approach with people who may not immediately want support. 
• Ability to balance independence and positive risk-taking with safeguarding, statutory conditions and public-protection considerations. 
• Confidence approaching local organisations, building partnerships and turning ideas into practical opportunities. 
• Good support-planning, recording and communication skills, with curiosity about what sits behind behaviour and disengagement. 
• Willingness to be active in the community with customers rather than delivering support mainly from the office.

Desirable: 

• Specialist forensic mental health knowledge and the secure-to-community pathway.
• Relational security, structured professional judgement and formulation-informed support. 
• Detailed knowledge of local Kingston and wider South West London community resources. 
• Statutory frameworks and restrictions relevant to some forensic customers.

Please attach a CV and send your personal statement to: Recruitment@Lookahead.org.uk

The service is anticipated to open on 4 January 2027, subject to contract finalisation, successful mobilisation and confirmation of operational readiness.

About us: 

Look Ahead is a leading, not-for-profit care and support provider in London and the South East. Our vision is to build better lives through social care and housing in local communities. As an organisation we deliver over 100 services, providing support to thousands of customers each year. Our mission is to co-design and deliver services that offer innovative social care solutions and support people to thrive. We work across mental health, homelessness and complex needs, young people and care leavers and learning disabilities so there are plenty of opportunities to grow and progress your career with us. 

We have a strong social purpose and we live and work by our values: 

• We focus on Excellence and innovation. 

• We are Caring and Compassionate. 

• We are Inclusive and Trusted. 

• We work in Partnership and are One-Team. 

Look Ahead is committed to safeguarding and promoting the welfare of children and adults at risk, and expects all employees, workers and volunteers to share this commitment. 

 If your application for this role is unsuccessful, but we feel that you would be suitable for another role, we may contact you to discuss alternative opportunities. If this occurs you would not need to submit another application for the alternative role. 

 We reserve the right to close this advert early if we are able to appoint to the vacancy before the advertised closed date. 

 We are committed to diversity and inclusion at work and are accredited with Silver in the Inclusive Employers Standard 2021. We are a proud member of the Employers Domestic Abuse Covenant and encourage applications from a diverse range of applicants of all backgrounds.