In-Reach Custody Caseworker

Full-time, Fixed Term Contract until 31 March 2026

West Midlands Police Custody Suites - Perry Barr & Oldbury Custody Suites

Ref: ICC--251

Are you a proactive, influential, and collaborative individual with a proven record of managing, mentoring or providing support to staff/volunteers and communicating effectively the needs of clients to other professionals? Looking for an exciting new career opportunity?

If so, join St Giles Trust as In-Reach Custody Caseworker, where you will be supporting young people in custody to reject an ongoing cycle of criminal activities, gangs, and related issues such as carrying weapons, drug-related offences, violence, county lines, and wider exploitation concerns.

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.

St Giles has been working across the Midlands for the past 7 years delivering peer-led services supporting people impacted by disadvantage, youth violence, and offending. Our work has evolved from prison training and rehabilitation services to community outreach including working in local A&E hospitals, police custody, and within local authority teams. From our Coventry hub, we offer a range of peer training, mentoring, and more recently, we have just opened a food pantry service to local people struggling with food poverty. Recently, we have opened a second office in Wolverhampton as the team and projects continue to expand.

About this exciting opportunity

The Police Custody In-Reach Service has recently launched across two main custody suites at Perry Barr & Oldbury. We have embedded credible lived experienced and culturally competent workers into the custody suites to use the arrest as a reachable moment to engage with CYP under 25 years of age of any gender that have been arrested for criminal activities, gangs, and related issues such as carrying weapons, drug-related offences, violence, and county lines, and wider exploitation concerns. The service provided uses a trauma-informed approach to support in a number of areas (e.g., housing, finances, substance misuse, mental health, training, employment, family matters). Initial contact is made in custody suites, followed by meeting in the community to provide tailored support.

You will provide a high-level service to young people aged 11-25 impacted by gangs, youth violence, county lines, and exploitation as either victims or perpetrators. You will help each young person to identify and realize alternative aspirations and goals to support them in establishing lifestyles that move them away from criminal activities, gang involvement, violence, and negative life choices.

What we are looking for

• Personal experience of the criminal justice system, lived experience of the issues facing this client group, and/or experience of working with ‘high risk’, vulnerable children, young people and/or families.
• Experience of engaging positively and deterring young people aged 11-25 in custody from offending once they have been identified as being involved in a violence-related incident, being at risk of exploitation, or gang affiliated.
• Experience of engaging successfully with challenging people, for example, people who have complex needs, people who are reluctant to discuss their needs, and people who are angry and confused.
• Experience of providing support, advice, and advocacy and the ability to assess clients’ needs.

In return, you can expect a competitive salary, generous leave allowance, staff pension, flexible working, a mentoring programme, an advice and counselling service, childcare vouchers, season ticket loan, and much more.

As an organisation that works with children and adults at risk, we are committed to safeguarding, protecting, and promoting the safety of our clients. An enhanced DBS barred list check is required for all successful applicants.

Closing date: 11pm, 29 April 2025. Interview date: 7 May 2025 Coventry Hub

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

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, or 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.