Family Support Worker

Prison Advice and Care Trust; Exeter; On-site; GBP 24,000 - 29,000; Part time

Benefits offered by this job

Free counselling

Contributory pension

Eye care scheme

Cycle to work scheme

Generous holiday entitlement

Job summary

Pact Exeter is seeking a part-time Family Support Worker (Visits Centre Assistant) to help create a welcoming, supportive environment for families visiting loved ones in prison. Based in the visitor centre, you will provide information, guidance, and organise child-friendly activities while ensuring refreshments are available.

You will work with colleagues and partner agencies, following safeguarding procedures and helping to improve family support services.

Qualifications

• Experience working with people facing difficulties or challenging situations.

Responsibilities

• Welcome families visiting the centre and provide information and guidance.
• Organise activities for children and ensure refreshments are available.
• Support safeguarding and child-protection procedures at all times.
• Contribute to making visits positive, stress‑free and supportive for families.

Skills

Interpersonal skills

Safeguarding awareness

Customer service

Organisational skills

Job description

Join us as a Family Support Worker (Visits Centre Assistant) at HMP Exeter, where you will play an important role in supporting families visiting their loved ones in prison.

Based in the visitor centre, you’ll help create a welcoming and supportive environment for adults and children. From offering information and guidance to organising activities for children and ensuring refreshments are available, you’ll contribute to making visits as positive and stress-free as possible.

This is a varied and rewarding role where no two days are the same. You’ll support families during what can often be a challenging time, using your experience of working with people facing difficulties to handle situations calmly and sensitively.

You’ll also work closely with colleagues and partner agencies, ensuring safeguarding and child protection procedures are followed at all times. Your input will help us continue to improve our family support services.

If you’re organised, approachable, and passionate about making a difference, we’d love to hear from you.

What we offer

Pact offers a range of benefits including a free advice, information and counselling service, contributory pension, corporate eye care scheme, cycle to work scheme and generous holiday entitlement.

• free advice, information and counselling service
• contributory pension
• corporate eye care scheme
• cycle to work scheme
• generous holiday entitlement

You will have the opportunity to attend training events to further develop yourself as a professional training and interventions worker. You will undergo a thorough induction process and be supported by a friendly and enthusiastic team.

Other information

Pact is an equal opportunity employer and welcomes all applications including those with a criminal conviction (appointment to post is subject to a risk assessment).

* We reserve the right to close this vacancy early if we receive sufficient applications for the role. Therefore, if you are interested, please submit your application as early as possible.

This post is subject to a 6-month probationary period, verification of identity and proven right to work in the UK, satisfactory references from previous employers covering a 3-year period, declaration of any unspent criminal convictions (and where appropriate a satisfactory risk assessment), Prison Vetting and a Disclosure and Barring Service check. Please note that being bankrupt or having County Court Judgements may affect your ability to be successfully vetted to work in a prison.

About us

Pact (the Prison Advice & Care Trust) is a pioneering national charity that provides caring and life changing services to men and women in prison, to people with convictions on release and in the community, and to their children and families.

Pact’s vision is of a society in which justice is understood as a process of restoration and healing, in which prisons are used sparingly and as places of learning and rehabilitation, and in which the innate dignity and worth of every human being is valued. We work for the common good of Society, taking a public health-based approach. We work at the intersection of criminal justice, child and family welfare, mental health, wellbeing provision and health & social care.

Our volunteers and staff can be found in courts, prisons, probation services, and in communities across England & Wales. We are a diverse, inclusive, modern, and collaborative charity. We build effective partnerships and sustainable solutions based on our well-established understanding of the systems in which we work, and on our historic values and ethos developed through our 120+ years of service delivery.

£26,227.50 per annum full time earnings, £4,895.70 actual earnings.

Hours

7 hours per week - Fridays and Saturdays 12.45 pm – 4.15 pm each day.

• Cycle to Work Scheme
• Life Assurance
• Season Ticket Loan
• EAP Scheme

25-09-2026

Job attachments

Family_Support_Worker_-_JD_HMP_Exeter_2_.docx