23217 - Senior Chaplain: Managing Chaplain

Ministry of Justice; Usk; On-site; GBP 65,000 - 80,000; Full time

Job summary

Ministry of Justice in Wales invites applications for a Senior Chaplain: Managing Chaplain to provide leadership and coordinate religious and pastoral care for prisoners and staff within an establishment. The role focuses on management rather than faith-specific duties and requires endorsement by the respective Faith and Belief Adviser.

As a non-operational leader, you will oversee a multi-faith chaplaincy team, develop relationships with support groups, ensure compliance with policy frameworks

Responsibilities

• Lead and manage a multi-faith chaplaincy team, ensuring availability of chaplaincy services to prisoners and staff.
• Promote and uphold HMPPS policy on diversity, decency, safety and reducing re-offending.
• Coordinate training, development and mentoring for chaplains and volunteers.
• Analyse data and report on chaplaincy performance and standards, attending boards and meetings.

Job description

23217 - Senior Chaplain: Managing Chaplain

This is a management job which provides leadership and facilitates/enables religious and pastoral care to prisoners and staff within an establishment.

Summary

This is a non-operational job with line management responsibilities for leading and managing a multi-faith and belief chaplaincy team. Although a managerial role rather than being faith or belief specific, post holders must be endorsed by the respective HMPPS Faith and Belief Adviser.

The job holder will provide for the religious and pastoral care of prisoners and staff in their own faith or belief tradition, and appropriate pastoral care for all irrespective of faith/belief tradition or of none.

The job holder will work with colleagues to ensure the delivery of PSI 05/2016 Faith and Pastoral Care for Prisoners or its successor policy framework document and also the broader work of chaplaincy in delivering faith and non-faith based courses. The job holder will contribute to the process by which the Governor and Head of Chaplaincy/Profession at headquarters are assured that these policies are being delivered.

Responsible for leading on developing relationships with various support and volunteer groups and, where appropriate, act as Official Prison Visitor Liaison Officer.

Takes responsibility for one’s own spiritual health and development, allowing time for private prayer/reflection, study and retreat.

Responsibilities, Activities and Duties

The job holder will be required to carry out the following responsibilities, activities and duties:

Team and Personal Management

• Responsible for leading and managing a multi-faith and belief chaplaincy team, ensuring chaplains are available and accessible to prisoners, the effective administration of chaplaincy, including prisoner lists for events, records updated etc and promotes HMPPS policy in all activities and behaviours; e.g. diversity, decency, safety and reducing re-offending agendas.
• Responsible for ensuring prisoners’ complaints (including those involving litigation claims) relevant to the Chaplaincy team, have been dealt with in accordance with policy. Carries out investigations and administration in relation to incidents of potential discrimination and reports on findings.
• Ensure chaplains and volunteers are receiving necessary training, development opportunities, mentoring and personal support including after incidents as well as for volunteers and nurturing them in their contribution.
• Accountable for the performance of the Chaplaincy team and the staff within it. Manages the achievement of qualitative and quantitative standards within the function, verifying and signing off documentation as appropriate. Analyse and act upon data relevant to Chaplaincy. Attends relevant boards/meetings and actively contribute either as chair or team member, produces relevant reports as required and ensures all correspondence is replied to within agreed timescales.

Pastoral Care & Worship/Meditation

• Provide pastoral care and seek to ensure spiritual welfare of prisoners and all staff, including acquiring and distributing appropriate faith/belief literature, supplies and materials. With responsibility for arranging and leading worship/meditation for own faith/belief community, plan, organise hospital visits, weddings, funerals, memorial services, where appropriate. Assist with offenders on release into the community, those serving community sentences or other HMPPS funded community initiatives by agreement.
• Provide expert faith/belief advice within establishment and be responsible for supporting it in ensuring faith/belief groups observe their religious holy days and festivals and for planning and leading workshops and prayer/faith specific meetings.
• Responsible for ensuring and delivering awareness programmes for prisoners, including bereavement programmes and lifer programmes, as applicable, and local faith/belief awareness training for staff.

Stakeholder Relationships & Management

• Work closely with Safer Custody to ensure issues such as deaths in custody procedures, Assessment Care in Custody Teamwork (ACCT) and Violence Reduction are delivered in-line with HMPPS standards. Ensuring, and contributing to, supporting prisoners in dealing with bereavement by liaising with families/prisoners and other third parties; e.g. hospitals, Coroners’ offices.
• Responsible for ensuring the involvement of the Chaplaincy team in resettlement issues as appropriate and engage and build contacts with own faith/belief community towards aiding the resettlement of prisoners and for the contact strategy with outside faith/belief-based agencies to help with the resettlement of prisoners.
• Contribute to the establishment’s overall achievement of standards and be accountable for the performance and delivery of targets relating to the budget and People Plan. Responsible for leading the development of local policy, procedures and practice and the implementation of national policy for chaplaincy services. Ensures that current Chaplaincy practice is in line with policy (both national and local). Contributes to the development and delivery of the medium-to-long term strategic and business plan for the establishment, with overall responsibility for implementation within their function. Ensure all risk assessments are undertaken and staff are made aware of their personal responsibility towards health and safety compliance.
• Responsible for ensuring relevant actions arising from Standard Audit, Her Majesty’s Inspectorate of Prisons (HMIP) Action Plans, Quality, Assurance and Development (QuAD) reports, Managing Quality of Prison Life (MQPL) surveys including local self-audit action plans and Resettlement strategies are delivered.

The duties/responsibilities listed above describe the post as it is at present and is not intended to be exhaustive. The job holder is expected to accept reasonable alterations and additional tasks of a similar level that may be necessary. Significant adjustments may require re-examination under the Job Evaluation Scheme and shall be discussed in the first instance with the job holder.

An ability to fulfil all spoken aspects of the role with confidence through the medium of English or (where specified in Wales) Welsh.