Night shift Support Worker

Elpis Trust provides accommodation and support to 19 young women, aged 16-24, in North-West Glasgow who are Care Experienced, are homeless, or have been Unaccompanied Asylum Seekers. Our dedicated staff team provide young women with life skills, a focus on wellbeing and mental health support to help them transition to independence once they are ready to leave our supported accommodation.

Young women who access Elpis are disadvantaged with complex needs that make them particularly vulnerable to a range of negative outcomes. The majority present with significant trauma, mental health issues including personality disorder, PTSD, ADHD, childhood trauma, self-harm and suicidal ideation; learning disabilities including Aspergers and Autism; risk taking behaviours including alcohol and addiction issues, as well as previous or current experience of trafficking or sexual exploitation. As a result of these significant and varied barriers, the majority of Elpis’ young women are isolated, vulnerable to exploitation and would struggle to maintain suitable housing without support.

It is Elpis' aim to support all of our young women with our dedicated staff team focusing on overall wellbeing, providing personal and life skills and mental health support to help young women transition to independence. Elpis also provides targeted transition support to enable young women to move successfully from supported accommodation into their own tenancy and maintains this support for the first year of their independent tenancy to support them in having the best chances of success.

To have specific working responsibility at present for 19 vulnerable young women, 9 living in the Core building and 9 in scatter flats and 1 in Mother & Baby flat in the Ruchill and Maryhill areas of Glasgow.

· Provide direct support to young women who have experienced homelessness and/or have a variety of complex emotional and mental health needs.

· Provide support to young women in all areas of service.

· Establish a supportive relationship with each young woman, enabling them to maximise their own resources in order to improve their quality of life, and to assist each young woman to be as independent as possible in all aspects of their daily life, in line with their support plans.

· On a daily basis assist and support young women to carry out identified housing support tasks to ensure that they maintain and sustain their accommodation and be flexible and responsive to meet the changing needs of the young women, as well as the housing support service itself.

· Problem solve unexpected and difficult issues that may arise during shift and deal with challenging behaviour when lone working, use own initiative in order to support the young women’s complex issues, and make decisions based on current assessments of risk, following set risk assessments protocols and procedures.

· Resolve complex young women issues, involving discussion with colleagues and relevant agencies through reviews and meetings, ensuring correct procedures are followed.

· Risk assess young woman’s needs and actions and consult with appropriate people such as line manager, social worker, case worker.

· Complete and update all relevant paperwork including housing support plans, risk assessments and case notes for each young woman, complying with National Care Standards, SSSC Codes of Practice, GIRFEC model of outcomes (SHANARRI) to ensure person centered service delivery and to meet service aims.

· Complete regular health and safety welfare checks of the young women, the building environment and equipment, reporting and dealing with any issues raised during these checks.

· Inform line management of any areas of concern or significant change when delivering young women support, to ensure that appropriate risk assessment is undertaken.

· Carry out all duties in compliance with Elpis Trust’s policies and procedures.

· Actively participate in 3 monthly support, supervision and observation.

· Work closely with and with direction from the Duty Manager, to plan and deliver young women’s identified support needs.

· Work co-operatively as part of a team including attending and contributing to team meetings and work in co-operation with other members of the support team, as well as colleagues from other agencies.

· Communicate in a knowledgeable, confident and professional manner with external agencies, including social workers, case work team, commissioning team, carers and relatives of young women. This may include email, telephone calls, letters or face to face meetings.

· Communicate with other team members in a respectful and supportive manner in order to promote positive team work and cohesion.

· Ensure the young women’s views and wishes are central to your work and encourage a high level of young women participation.

· To actively participate in identified training, on-going supervision and performance development.

Note: Duties will be reviewed and modified in line with the exigencies of the service.