Young Person's Worker

We are currently looking for a Young Person's Worker to join our team.

The Hive is part of The Minding the Gap programme, a cross cutting support service aimed at 16 to 24 year olds in Camden needing support transitioning between children’s and adult mental health services. The Hive is delivered by a unique partnership between leading local providers in Camden and young people - set up to create an integrated, holistic provision for 16-24 year olds. The Hive is commissioned by Camden Council and the Camden Clinical Commissioning Group (CCG) from Catch 22, working with The Brandon Centre, the Anna Freud Centre, Camden and Islington NHS Foundation Trust, The Tavistock and Portman NHS Foundation Trust, The Winch and The Integrate Movement.

The Young People’s Workers are managed by two professionals (Team Lead roles) with backgrounds in mental health and working with vulnerable young people. There is a virtual team around The Hive team comprising organisations that make up the delivery partnership. These organisations are expert in the areas of work addressed by the team and provide training and consultation to The Hive.

As a Young People’s Worker, you will need to be able to gain and build trusting relationships with a diverse range of young people so that they feel able to talk to you about the different problems they face. You will be trained and supported to apply non-formalised therapeutic techniques from a range of therapeutic backgrounds to meet the needs of the young people you work with. You will be able to identify and refer young people with more complex mental health needs to appropriate agencies. You will support young people to access a broad range of in-house and local services. You will take personal responsibility to ensure different service providers are working together so that nothing falls through the gaps for the young people you are working with, and that they experience integrated support. This will involve creating strong partnerships with local services via community orientation and outreach work to support young people in services they are already accessing.

You will carry out assessments with young people in order to set goals and create holistic care plans to meet their needs. You will not be seeking to create a permanent mentor relationship, and will work with young people to ensure that they are able to live lives more independently of services, or to ensure they are linked into other appropriate organisations to meet their needs. A significant proportion of the service operates an outreach model of delivery, in the community, as preferred by the young person. The outreach work particularly targets vulnerable young people who may not readily engage with services.

You will be responsible for supporting the service manager and hub coordinator to plan, advertise and carry out activities in The Hive – our social hub. You will support and engage in the group work element of The Hive, engaging with young people on the social hub and carrying out health and wellbeing activities. The young people supported through this project will often be vulnerable and challenging and workers need to be resilient, skilled and flexible to ensure that we deliver a consistently high quality service.

Main Duties & Accountabilities:

The role will require flexibility and skills in adaptability and the appointed person will be expected to carry out tasks over all different areas within the service.

This will include:

- Regular working hours within the social hub supporting delivery and engaging in the youth work element.
- One-to-one individual work with young people on your caseload;
- Outreach and orientation work with young people and services out in the community.

Working locations include:

- The Hive premises;
- Outreach and community based across Camden;
- Other sites and businesses within the local community may be required;
- Meeting young people in their homes may be required.

Qualifications:

Young Person’s Worker: Person Specification

- Have an NVQ level 2 in an area related to working with young people from under privileged backgrounds or a BA or BSc degree preferably, but not necessarily, in a social studies subject e.g. sociology, social administration, psychology or a teaching, youth work, nursing, substance misuse worker qualification, social work or other training relevant for working with vulnerable young people, including training by experience;
- Experience of working with young people in youth based/support settings;
- Experience of providing one to one support to young people;

KNOWLEDGE/ EXPERIENCE:

- Knowledge and awareness of the types of issues that affect young people;
- Knowledge of good practice in emotional wellbeing and mental health delivery for 16 to 25 year olds – and an understanding of the key issues in relation to service delivery for this group.
- Knowledge of relevant legislation, policy and good practice relating to young people

SKILLS & ABILITIES

- Ability to work alongside staff from a range of different agencies e.g. Youth Services, Social Care; Substance Misuse; NHS or Mental Health;
- An understanding of the risks entailed in service delivery to vulnerable young people and risk management processes.