Prison Link Worker
Location: Surrey
Salary: A GBP 25,154 per annum
We are recruiting for a Prison Link Worker at HMP Highdown and HMP/YOI Feltham
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 prisoners 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.
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.
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 thats publicly available on the internet to ensure theres not