We are recruiting for a Prison Link Worker at HMP Highdown and HMP/YOI Feltham
We are Forward, the social enterprise that empowers people to break the cycle of crime and addiction to move forward and live fulfilling lives .
We deliver a range of MOJ Commissioned Rehabilitative services (CRS) directly for Probation in three key areas: Accommodation, Personal Wellbeing and Dependency & Recovery. Accommodation is delivered in Wales, Dependency and Recovery in London and Humberside, Personal Wellbeing in East of England, Sussex, Surrey and as a subcontractor in Kent and Cheshire.
These services work with Men 18+ who are under probation supervision, supporting them to navigate through their desired outcomes in order to achieve transformational change, break the cycle of offending and achieve long-term integration into society.
Our services have supported thousands of people to make positive changes and build productive lives with a job, family, friends, and a sense of community. No matter what your past, we believe anyone is capable of lasting change
Role Responsibilities
As a Prison Link Worker in the Dependency and Recovery Service, you will be working within a hybrid model as part of a flexible, multi-disciplinary team, working predominantly from HMP High Down and HMP/YOI Feltham. Your role involves working with men in a prison setting prior to their release, managing them through the gate, then post release into the community. This is an in-person service, and you will be expected to work day-to-day from the locations mentioned above.
This role is key to supporting the continuity of care agenda, ensuring smooth transition through the gate from prison to community treatment and other services. It is vital that you build close working relationships with the prison substance misuse teams.
You will be targeting boroughs with low continuity of care by providing meet and greet/enhanced support for releases that have a history of non-engagement, with daily calls/appointment reminders and accompanying clients to probation/substance misuse appointments.
You will need to manage risks associated with transition to community, e.g. treatment drop-out, harm minimisation/overdose and attend key initial appts. Overall, you will need to support service user to successfully integrate into community by successful engagement with statutory and voluntary services both in person and virtually.
You will need to understand the barriers and opportunities to improve continuity of care (pre-release contact, reviewing release plans with prison substance mis-use worker, identifying alternative points of contact for the SU on release (e.g. family/friends), ensuring a community substance misuse appt has been made.
You will need to be confident working autonomously in prison settings representing the Dependency and Recovery Service as the sole worker. You will be assigned key prisons, but at times, you may need to support pan London.
You will be fully prison-vetted and carry keys to work in custodial settings to build relationships with clients and key prison partners eg. Substance misuse, offender manager teams, for in-depth understanding of each prisoner’s pre/post release needs. You will then continue to work with clients in the community.
You will carry a diverse caseload of mainly adult male prison leavers (pre/post) and those on community orders within the Probation services, supporting to implement their action plan and navigate their recovery journey, providing support/continuity of contact and signposting. You will be responsible for completing comprehensive assessments, collaborative action plan, whilst maintaining accurate record keeping throughout on electronic case management systems.
The Dependency and Recovery Service will not duplicate provision where Commissioned Services are already in place, instead we will work to ensure access and sustained engagement with statutory and existing provision to include building motivation, practical assistance and ongoing support and/or achieve controlled dependent behaviour or abstinence with the aim to reduce re-offending.
You will be responsible for adhering to the targets set by Forward and the local commissioners. Co-operative working relationships with other partner agencies and probation staff are vital to this role.
Some degree of flexibility may be required for out of office work, but this is a predominately Mon -Fri 09:00-17:00 role.
You may at times be required to attend our head office for training and also team meeting in the community.
All probation-based roles will require enhanced DBS and HMPPS security vetting. Please note this process can take up to 3-6 weeks. All offers are subject to receiving both HMPPS vetting and DBS clearances.
- Checks will require you to provide information on the below:
- Yourself (personal information, financial information, police information, criminal history)
- Your family (parents, parents’ partners, siblings, partner(s), children)
- Co-residents
- Associations that may cause a conflict of interest with your role or the prison service.
- Background checks across police information systems on you, your family and other associates
- Credit reference checks
- Social media and Open-Source checks (these are checks on content about you that's publicly available on the internet to ensure there's nothing linked to you that could undermine public trust and confidence in the prison service)
- Other government and overseas agency or police checks.
The Ideal Candidate
This role requires confident, flexible individual who can work well managing a high volume of caseloads.
Please also see a list of skills and experience needed for this role ;
- Understanding of, and commitment to, the principles of equal opportunity and GDPR requirements including client confidentiality
- Driving licence and access to a car ( the role will require visits to all prisons in and provide meet and greet for release)
- Ability to work autonomously and confidently in a secure setting
- Experience of using electronic case management systems and efficient with Microsoft Word, Outlook, teams.
- A thorough knowledge and understanding of the needs of clients within custody and post release , who have substance mis-use issues
- Demonstrable experience of managing high caseloads, carrying out risk/ comprehensive assessments, SMART action plans and effective case records
- Experience of delivering both 1:1 and group-work interventions using motivational techniques and trauma informed approaches
- Experience of working with treatment and/or criminal justice services
- The ability to set and stick to professional boundaries
- Ability to work effectively with key partners in order to successfully deliver outcomes
- Demonstrate the ability to organise workload , ensuring effective time management and prioritisation to meet targets