Family Worker - HMP Wormwood Scrubs

Overview:
Are you a hard-working and passionate individual with excellent people skills?
Do you have the commitment and energy to undertake a role that is diverse and
rewarding?

Are you passionate about making a difference, sharing knowledge and being in a
job where you can experience true transformation and repair?

If you found your head nodding in answer to the above questions then why not
consider joining us at The Forward Trust as a Connections Family
Practitioner where you will be embarking on a highly rewarding and career-
building position within the area of family support.

As a Connections Worker based at HMP High Down you will be working with
clients who are engaging with our substance misuse treatment programme,
helping them to navigate relationships with family and friends which may have
become damaged or strained as a result of the difficulties associated with
dependency and imprisonment.

At Forward we embody a systemic approach and where possible and appropriate
aim to support both clients in custody and concerned others (friends and
family) in the wider community. Our focus is on reconnecting, repair and re-
establishing various pathways for contact.

You will need to be passionate about making a difference, helping families to
work through challenges and enabling them think about new perspectives and
ways of managing relationships.

This role requires a blend of one to one support for both client and family
members, delivery of our group work programme to clients in custody and
liaison with a range of organisations within the community and prison.

Forward employs Family Connections Workers in both our community and
prison settings and you will be part of a Team within your prison but also
within the wider organisation where you will have the opportunity to connect,
network and gain support from others who are delivering similar interventions

If you are an individual who is passionate about offering the kind of support
and guidance that can help our clients and families achieve their relationship
goals and raise aspirations for all, this job could well be the perfect one
for you.
What you will be doing?:
Family work is part of the Recovery Support Department. The Family strategy
has been designed around Forward 's own research, a series of focus groups
with clients at a numberof units, and our own experience and learning in the
units. This has indicated an overriding feeling from clients that 'Families
don't understand addiction, what we do in treatment or
understand prison'. This evidences clients' mindfulness with regard to the
vital need for information for families and friends and how they feel their
own recovery journeys will benefit positively from their families involvement
and education.

Our Family Work Strategy has been devised on the basis of a thorough needs
assessment, informed by available research both from within the field and
across the organisation itself.

The strategy aims to include both clients and their families as part of
Forward's treatment programmes; ensuring that there are separate and distinct
pathways for each, which will naturally merge and overlap, enabling us to
utilise the joint involvement of family members and CSOs where appropriate and
feasible.

To ensure a successful family work framework across the organisation we must
fully understand the level of need and in turn gain a sense of the preferred
interventions for families and CSO's. In view of this, it has been decided
that we shall begin to deliver an initial range of interventions we feel will
be most useful and most practical for the teams to use in both prison and
community projects.

The Family Worker Coordinator in head office will support the continuity of
the strategy across the organisation.

What we are looking for?:
Skills and Experience:

Experience of providing support services to families
Flexibility to meet the needs of the service as it develops.
A positive problem solving approach with the ability to focus on key issues
quickly and clearly.
Effective negotiating and influencing skills.
Previous experience of developing and implementing service improvements.
The ability to engage effectively with the client group.
Understanding of the voluntary sector.
Understanding of and sensitivity to diversity and equality issues.
Working knowledge of using Microsoft office packages and databases.
Commitment to ‎12 steps interventions and treatment approach.
Knowledge of the use of database monitoring systems.
Experience of overseeing the collection, recording and collating of
information, including statistical data, for audit, research and reporting
purposes.
Experience of developing and delivering training/workshops
A thorough understanding of Service user led support groups and their role in
maintaining ongoing recovery.

Qualifications

Possession of a recognised counse counselling qualification, or ongoing
attendance on a recognised counselling course.

Person specification:
Connections Worker JD ‎2022