Support Worker

Ref SWB-252
Closing date 15th September 2025

Are you a proactive, collaborative and compassionate individual with a proven record of successfully supporting young adults into sustainable employment? Do you have strong experience of working on a target driven project, and a proven ability to support others to reach their targets?

If so, join St Giles as a Support Worker for Young Adults with Complex Emotional Needs (YACEN Project), where you will provide tailored one to one high-level service of engagement, advocacy and support to young adults who will be transitioning from Children's Mental Health Services into Adult Mental Health Services and to engage in positive activities within their communities, including sustainable education, training, employment, and improve their mental health and wellbeing.

About St Giles Trust
An ambitious, well-established charity that helps people facing adversity to find jobs, homes and the right support they need. Central to our ethos is our belief that people with first-hand experience of successfully overcoming issues such as an offending background, homelessness, addictions and gang involvement, hold the key to positive change in others.

About this key role
As our Support Worker, you will support the promotion of the project, both internally and externally, and the achievement of project targets for engagement and progression onto training, employment and other outcomes for the Young Adults with Complex Emotional Needs (YACEN). You will maintain accurate and timely client records and evidence of all achieved outcomes according to programme requirements and as required by the funders, while also building excellent relationships with local authorities, voluntary organisations, mental health services, schools/colleges and other services across Bedfordshire.

We will rely on you to develop contacts and liaise with external agencies to develop positive working relationships, enabling effective referrals of participants and developing progression opportunities, plus deliver Transition Life Skills sessions to a cohort of young people. Actively promoting gender equality and involving the people we serve, and looking to address some of the unique issues faced by minority groups, including ensuring accessible resources in multiple formats (e.g. easy read, different languages) and working with specialist community groups are also key duties.

What we are looking for

• The ability to engage and holistically support young adults who face multiple and complex barriers to employment, including complex emotional needs such as a diagnosed personality disorder
• In-depth knowledge and awareness of the issues faced by the client group in accessing and sustaining employment and methods that result in positive outcomes
• The ability to engage and build positive relationships with employers to support both employees and employers and encourage improvements to the quality of employment
• The ability to work to targets and record information to enable effective monitoring of performance against targets
• Excellent interpersonal, relationship-building and communication skills, verbal and written
• A professional, collaborative and flexible approach to your work

Please note: as an organisation that works with children and adults at risk we are committed to safeguarding, protecting and promoting the safety of our clients and successful applicants will be subject to an Enhanced Child Workforce with Child Barred list DBS.

In return, you can expect a competitive salary, generous leave allowance, staff pension, flexible working, a mentoring programme, an advice and counselling service, clinical therapist sessions, life insurance (4 x annual salary), duvet days, season ticket loan, employee perks programme, eye care voucher and much more.

We are an equity and inclusion confident employer. We welcome all applications, and we particularly encourage applications from people of the global majority (black, brown, multi- heritage) and those who identify as disabled, neuroexpansive, neurodiverse, with any protected characteristics and/or social barriers or challenges. We value the empowering and informative impact that all lived experiences and diversity of thought can offer the organisation.

St Giles will guarantee to interview all disabled applicants who meet the minimum criteria set out in the Job Description for the vacancy.

We will be reviewing applications as they are received, and reserve the right to close this advert early if a suitable candidate is appointed. We therefore strongly encourage early applications to avoid any disappointment

Closing date: 15h September 2025 Interview date: 22nd September 2025