Community Outreach Officer - Care & Support NE London

About Outward

For 50 years, Outward has been providing high-quality support and care services to vulnerable people across London, predominantly in North and East London. Established by families seeking alternatives to institutional care, we've grown into a respected provider of person-centred support for adults with learning disabilities, autism, mental health needs and complex needs. We support over 1,000 people across nine boroughs, guided by our core values: engage, enable and empower, and we work in partnership with individuals and their families to promote choice, control and inclusion.

• Outward is proud to be an accredited Living Wage Employer .
• This means we are committed to paying the Real Living Wage - not just the government minimum or national living wage - to our frontline Support Workers and other eligible staff.
• We recognise the value of the work our teams do, and we are committed to ensuring fair pay that reflects the true cost of living.

About the Role

We are looking for a proactive and passionate Community Outreach Officer s to join our dedicated team.

Outreach is a community-based service designed to support adults with learning disabilities to maintain or gain independence by supporting people to learn new skills, find new social activities, deal with housing matters, get support around money management, benefit applications and paying bills as well maintaining or achieving a healthy lifestyle.

This role offers a unique opportunity to combine direct support responsibilities with service coordination and expanding professional networks with other professionals. As a Community Outreach Officer, you will play a key role in empowering the people we support to live independent and fulfilling lives. You'll provide high-quality support, while also coordinating day to day elements of your individual service delivery such as support planning, key working, rota session times. You will work closely with the Deputy or Team Manager and play an active role in ensuring our services are person-centred, well-led, and delivered with Outward's core values of engage, enable, and empower.

Your Responsibilities

• Claiming benefits - helps with filling out forms, providing advice, contact with DWP services,
• Budgeting - preparing and monitoring a budget plan / diary
• Employment - encouragement to apply for jobs, assistance with completing CV, application forms, etc.
• Meaningful activities - encouraging the customer to think of options, finding and presenting opportunities, encouraging and monitoring participation
• Identifying and actioning issues around Safeguarding
• Tenancy at risk - help to seek legal advice, contact with landlord to delay / stop legal action, support customer through court process
• Health - promoting a good diet and exercise, linking with GP and specialist services.
• Attending Appointments and providing detailed written feedback afterward
• Household chores, cooking and shopping - prompting and encouraging customer to undertake these chores, skill-sharing and supervision on a limited (and reducing) basis to encourage self-reliance.
• Accessing community resources - accompanying to appointments and activities on a limited (and reducing) basis to encourage self-reliance, signposting and sourcing options.
• An HRFS worker may find the best way to support on any of the above needs is to refer and support the person to access local services (e.g. CAB, Jobcentre, and GP).

But not normally:

• any aspect of hands-on personal care (Though prompting and encouragement required)
• supervision / prompting of medication on a regular basis.
• solely general social contact / befriending
• holding and distributing customer finances
• formal counselling
• cooking / cleaning for the customer (and with the customer on a limited and reducing basis only)

Essential Criteria

• Good understanding of safeguarding and risk management in a care/support setting
• Knowledge of health and safety issues within supported housing or care environments
• Understanding of confidentiality, GDPR, and data protection principles
• Staff must have access to a smartphone capable of receiving SMS messages and installing authentication apps for secure systems access
• Right to Work in the UK. Please note: Outward will not provide visa sponsorship.

Desirable Criteria NVQ Level 2 or 3 in Health and Social Care (or equ