Job Outline
Post Title: / Positive Transitions Officer
Section: / Housing Services
Reports to: / Resettlement Manager
Grade: / Scale 6 / Hours of Work: / 37 hours per week
Purpose of Job
As a Positive Transitions Officer you will support care leavers to make a positive transition from care into their new home. It is recognised that good quality housing underpins success in all areas of their lives, you will ensure this transition is carried out in partnership with the young people and that their personal experience is positive, supportive, truthful and empowering.
You will provide support to develop practical skills to assist in their ability to improve their own situation and enhance their life choices. You will do this by encouraging, motivating and working alongside the young people, providing a range of support that will inspire them to make essential changes for themselves. This will be achieved by clear goal setting and supporting the young people in developing links with statutory and community services to provide sustainable long term support. You will develop long term outcomes including exit strategies to enable the young people to successfully sustain their tenancies and prosper in the neighbourhood in which they live in.
Main Responsibilities and Key Result Areas.
1.  To deliver a service which has a holistic approach to meeting the needs of individual customers. Protect and promote the rights and interest of care leavers treating all as individuals, promoting their views, supporting individuals in their right to control their own lives, make informed choices, maintain dignity and privacy and respecting diversity, different cultures and values.
2.  To provide care leavers with as much information, choice and control as possible and provide practical advice which support them to understand the outcomes of the decisions they make.
3.  To develop professional relationships which enable care leavers to feel supported when they make mistakes and understand any learning from these. Whilst risk taking is a natural process of growing up these should not result in them “falling out” of this support service and placing their tenancy at risk.
4.  To help care leavers to focus on achievement and success and how they can positively take control and responsibility for their own situation.
5.  To manage a case load of care leavers who have been referred from Blackpool Council Children’s Services.
6.  To maintain accurate records to enable appropriate returns to allow for the appropriate draw down of funding.
7.  To ensure that the key outcomes of the service are delivered.
8.  To meet care leavers when they are ready to transfer from care to independent living and undertake a full assessment of their circumstances.
9.  To actively engage care leavers to establish clear goals to shape their individual support plan, developing SMART targets and outcomes.
10.  To help care leavers to develop practical skills such as cleaning, gardening, cooking and basic decorating to help them maintain their home to an acceptable standard.
11.  To link care leavers into life enrichment activities that will motivate them to become part of the community in which they live, improve their wellbeing and increase their skills.
12.  Work collaboratively with other partners to remove barriers which prevent care leavers from achieving the goals set within their support plan including budget management, removing debt, access to health services, access to social care or voluntary services.
13.  To support care leavers in making the transition from their current lifestyle into work, volunteering, training or education.
14.  To participate in multiagency meetings. Build working relationships based on trust, respect, sharing, co-operation and mutual support to establish and maintain constructive open relationships with colleagues.
15.  To work closely with colleagues within Estate Management and ASB services to support compliance with terms and conditions of the tenancy agreement, using enforcement tools that may be appropriate.
Responsibilities of all employees:
The post holder may be expected to undertake other similar reasonable duties related to the scope and main purpose of the job. Any significant changes to these duties will result in changes to the job outline, which will be fully consulted and subject to a job evaluation.
It is the responsibility of the post holder to operate safely within the workplace with regard to health and safety procedures and safe working practices. To be responsible for your own health and safety and that of other people.
All employees are required to operate in accordance with all equalities policies, embracing through personal example, open commitment and clear action that diversity is positively valued, resulting in access for all by ensuring fair treatment in employment, service delivery and communications.
All employees must adhere to confidentiality and data protection procedures at all times. Where access is provided to sensitive information this must remain confidential, and may only be used, copied, stored or disclosed for authorised purposes.
The post holder is responsible for working at all times within the established policies and procedures for the organisation and their service area.
It is the responsibility of the post holder to undertake any relevant training as required for the job role.
All employees are responsible for understanding and adhering to professional boundaries. This includes establishing a professional approach in all dealings with customers.
All employees are responsible for reporting any safeguarding concerns where children or vulnerable adults may be in a position where they could become harmed.

Person Specification
Post Title: / Positive Transitions Officer
Section: / Housing Services
Reports to: / Resettlement Manager
Grade: / Scale 6 / Hours of Work: / 37 hours per week

Note: E denotes essential / D denotes desirable

Skills / E/D
Ability to actively engage with care leavers to establish clear goals to shape their individual support plan, developing smart targets and outcomes to enable them to successfully achieve goals
Ability to support care leavers to develop practical skills such as cleaning/gardening/cooking/basic decorating, delivering these in a therapeutic way to motivate your care leavers to maintain their home in the future and for the duration of their tenancy with BCH
Ability to establish and maintain constructive and open relationships with customers and colleagues
Ability to work creatively with customers that are unmotivated, vulnerable or have other life issues to identify strengths and targets for achievement
Ability and willingness to work under pressure and find flexible solutions tailored to service and individual needs
Ability to motivate, lead by example and inspire others to achieve success
Ability to sell the benefits of, and overcome barriers to, employment, training, education with both care leavers and key stakeholders. Provide practical assistance in ensuring that care leavers can get to and from appointments
Excellent organisational skills, conscientious and well organised approach to work load and proven ability to effectively manage a caseload to meet the needs of customers, contractual requirements and targets set within the programme
Ability to link care leavers into local activities to motivate them to connect with other local residents, develop networks and become part of the community they live in
Ability to assist care leavers to access statutory and voluntary services by referring them and assertively supporting them to engage. Ensure that referrals, applications and/or relevant signposting takes place where specialist knowledge is required eg. Debt Advice, Mental Health Services, Social Services, CAB
Ability to recognise and deal with any safeguarding issues, recording information accurately and comprehensively, make referrals, attend and contribute to any safeguarding conferences
Ability to actively contribute to and participate in supervision and appraisal processes
Assist in ensuring that the service procedures continue to accurately reflect current working practices and review these procedures annually in conjunction with the ASB and Neighbourhood teams / E
E
E
E
E
E
E
E
E
E
E
E
E
Knowledge / E/D
A good understanding of:
The requirements of Safeguarding and knowledge on how to make referrals, participate in multi-agency meetings and establish constructive relationships with colleagues
Understanding matters regarding data protection and confidentiality procedures
Awareness of the Social Housing Sector and the impact of Welfare Reform
Basic knowledge and understanding of the welfare benefits system
Issues related to social exclusion and an understanding of how these can impact customers
Knowledge of local community services, education opportunities, voluntary services
Awareness of Professional Boundaries and how to interact with customer in a safe and professional manner
Awareness of Health and Safety Requirements / E
E
D
D
E
D
E
E
Experience / E/D
Experience in dealing with a diverse range of customers including customers that may be vulnerable
Experience in working with a wide range of agencies
Experience in influencing others effectively, enabling them to overcome difficulties positively, motivating them to remain engaged and how they can positively take control and responsibility for their own situation
Experience of working within a Social Housing Environment and/or Young Peoples Environment
Experience of supporting customers in to services such as volunteering, employment, education opportunities and other specialist support services
Experience of working as a lone worker, using initiative and the ability to effectively manage a demanding workload.
Experience of identifying and dealing with potential issues that can effect individuals or service delivery, intervening and putting mechanisms in place to reduce the impact of these
Experience in managing a fluid caseload, ensuring that resources are used effectively and administration functions comply with all relevant internal quality procedures
Experience of preparing and maintaining appropriate records and case files
Experience of attending multi-agency meetings, preparing records and case files to support decision making within these meetings
Experience of actively collecting feedback on service delivery from a customer’s perspective and using this to improve service delivery / E
E
E
E
D
E
E
E
E
E
E
Qualifications / E/D
Minimum 3 GCSEs or equivalent to include Math’s and English at grade C
A Mentoring or Counselling Qualification
A Customer Care Qualification
Chartered Institute of Housing professional qualification or willingness to work towards this qualification
Post-secondary education qualification / E
D
D
D
D
Special requirements and Environmental factors / E/D
Full UK driving licence and access to a vehicle for purposes of work. Business car insurance must have the ability to transport customers as part of the role for this post, this will need to be specifically identified within insurance documents
To attend evening meetings as and when the role requires
The post holder will be expected to meet the performance targets set within the Funding contract, fulfil the data recording requirements and provide any evidence based documentation for auditing purposes.
To participate in individual and in-service training/development programmes / E
E
E
E