Housing Support Officer

Mears Group PLC; Scotland; On-site; GBP 26,000 - 32,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

25 days annual leave

Annual Mears Fun Day

Volunteering Leave

Staff perks with Mears Rewards

Family friendly policies

Company Vehicle and Fuel Card

Access to EAP Counselling sessions

Job summary

Mears Group PLC is seeking a Housing Support Officer in Scotland to support asylum seekers through the Home Office asylum process. The role focuses on practical and emotional support, safeguarding, and welfare monitoring, requiring resilience, empathy, and strong record-keeping to ensure compliance and service quality.

Full-time position with a company vehicle or car allowance, driving license, and DBS/BPSS checks as part of the recruitment process.

Qualifications

• Experience of working with vulnerable and diverse client groups.
• Understanding of safeguarding principles and procedures.
• Experience with record keeping and risk assessments.
• Able to work under own initiative and travel as required.

Responsibilities

• Support service users at various stages of their asylum application process, including safeguarding and welfare issues.
• Provide practical and emotional support to service users.
• Monitor wellbeing and support needs and maintain accurate records for Home Office audits.
• Maintain professional boundaries and deliver a consistent, well-defined service.

Skills

Experience with vulnerable groups

Safeguarding understanding

Record keeping

Work independently

Travel flexibility

Full UK driving licence

Job description

Annual salary: up to £29,856.80

Housing Support Officer

East Renfrewshire, Inverclyde, Renfrewshire

Salary up to £28,917 per annum

Full time – Permanent, 40hrs per week, Monday to Friday

Including company vehicle and fuel card or £3,500 company car allowance

Mears provides temporary accommodation to asylum seekers whilst their claim is being assessed in three regions: Northeast, Yorkshire and Humber, Northern Ireland, and Scotland. At the end of May 2021 Mears had over 19000 service users across the three regions. Mears work in partnership with central and local Government, registered providers, tenants, landlords and investors to find solutions to homelessness, provide more social and affordable housing and create specialist housing for people with care needs.

About The Role

Due to contract expansion, we are seeking for a Housing Support Officer to join our team. This is an exciting position that works exclusively to support Asylum seekers going through their right to work Asylum application process with the home office. The ideal candidate will be resilient, trustworthy, caring, a people person and extremely empathetic to others. As a Housing Support Officer every day is different, no day is the same. Although this role comes with it challenges it is an extremely rewarding role.

As a Housing Support Officer your main duties will include but not limited to ensuring service users are supported at various stages of their Asylum application process including any safeguarding and welfare issues you come across, providing practical and emotional support to service users, monitoring service users’ wellbeing and support needs and ensuring all records are updated and accurate for home office audit purposes. It is essential to maintain boundaries and being resilient to ensure a professional and a well-defined service is provided to always meet the needs of the service users.

Role Criteria

• Experience of working with vulnerable and diverse client groups
• Experience and understanding of safeguarding
• Ability to identify individuals and family need and recognise the required support packages to maintain independence
• Experience working with mental health and or challenging behaviour
• To communicate effectively with colleagues, local authorities, and service users
• Experience with record keeping and risk assessments
• Ability to work under own initiative
• Resilient
• You will be supportive, trustworthy, a good listener, approachable and empathetic to others
• Flexible and happy to travel
• Full UK driving license

All our roles require candidates to have the entitlement to work within the UK, Mears does not currently offer visa sponsorship.

As part of the recruitment process for this role, we will carry out a DBS & BPSS check, as well as Security Clearance. For these checks to be completed, we will require from you the relevant identification, including Proof of Address, References, a valid passport and proof that you have lived in the UK for the last 5 years.

Benefits We Can Offer You

• 25 days annual leave plus bank holidays
• Annual Mears Fun Day - Our annual Fun Day is organised as a massive thank you from the Executive team for all the hard work!
• Volunteering Leave - Mears supports employees to undertake paid volunteering in the community, in support of our social value commitment.
• Staff perks with Mears Rewards - discounts of up to 10% weekly groceries, holidays, eye test vouchers, Share save scheme, plus much more
• Family friendly policies
• Company Vehicle and Fuel Card
• Access to EAP Counselling sessions

Required Qualifications

English

At Mears Group, we are committed to fostering a diverse and inclusive environment where everyone can thrive, we are a Disability Confident employer, valuing individuality and ensuring equal opportunities for all.

We proudly support the Armed Forces Covenant and are honoured to have achieved the Gold Award in the Defence Employer Recognition Scheme (ERS) to coincide with this, we hold an Endorser Award for the Career Transition Partnership, recognising our commitment to veterans transitioning into civilian careers.

In our continued effort to promote social mobility, we invite applicants to voluntarily share their background information during the application stages to help us better understand the diverse experiences of our candidates. This is to ensure we are committed to improving social mobility. We use the Social Mobility Index to assess and enhance opportunities for individuals from diverse backgrounds. These questions are optional and will not impact your ability to apply.