Family Support Worker

Prison Advice and Care Trust; Lichfield; On-site; GBP 10,000 - 15,000; Part time

Benefits offered by this job

Cycle to Work Scheme

Life Assurance

Season Ticket Loan

EAP Scheme

Job summary

Pact (the Prison Advice & Care Trust) is seeking a Family Support Worker (Visits Centre Assistant) at HMP Swinfen Hall. Based in the visitor centre, you will help create a welcoming environment for families, provide information and guidance, and organise activities for children during visits.

You’ll work calmly with people facing difficulties, support safeguarding procedures, and collaborate with partner agencies to improve our family support services.

Qualifications

• Experience working with families and children
• Ability to handle safeguarding and child protection procedures calmly
• Strong organisational and communication skills

Responsibilities

• Support families during visits at HMP Swinfen Hall
• Provide information, guidance and practical help to visitors
• Organise activities for children and arrange refreshments
• Work with partner agencies to ensure safeguarding standards are met
• Contribute to improving family support services
• Participate in induction and training as needed

Skills

Safeguarding procedures

Interpersonal skills

Organised / approachable

Working with families

Job description

Join us as a Family Support Worker (Visits Centre Assistant) at HMP Swinfen Hall, 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. 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).

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.

Hours

16 hours per week: 11 am to 4.30 pm. Averaging 3 shifts a week. (Visit days are Tuesdays, Wednesdays, Thursdays, Saturdays and Sundays)

Cycle to Work Scheme
Life Assurance
Season Ticket Loan
EAP Scheme

09-10-2026

Job attachments

Family_Support_Worker_-_JD_Swinfen_Hall.docx