Local Caseworker (Thames Valley)

Brake; Milton Keynes; Remote; GBP 26,000; Full time

Job summary

Brake, the UK's leading road safety charity, is looking for a dedicated Caseworker in the Thames Valley region. You will provide crucial support to families affected by road tragedies, offering emotional, practical assistance, and advocacy. This role is rewarding yet challenging, requiring resilience, empathy, and a commitment to making a difference.

Benefits

Flexible working hours

Death in service benefit

36 days annual leave

Employee assistance program

Training and development opportunities

Qualifications

• Experience in frontline support services involving sudden bereavement.
• Strong advocacy and research skills.
• Self-motivated and resilient.

Responsibilities

• Provide direct support to road victims and their families.
• Manage a caseload ensuring emotional and practical needs are met.
• Undertake comprehensive needs assessments and create support plans.

Skills

Advocacy

Empathy

Resilience

Tools

IT Skills

Job description

About Brake
Brake is the UK’s leading road safety charity, dedicated to supporting people affected by road crashes and advocating for safer streets. Since 1995, we have been helping victims and their families to navigate the devastating impact of road collisions through the National Road Victim Service—providing immediate, compassionate, and tailored support for those who have been bereaved or seriously injured. Our mission goes beyond recovery; we campaign tirelessly for legislative and societal changes to prevent future tragedies and make roads safer for everyone.

Join Us as a Caseworker – Thames Valley Region - To apply for this role, you MUST be a resident in the Thames Valley area.

This year, Brake celebrates 30 years of life-changing work, and we’re looking for a committed and compassionate Caseworker to help us continue making an impact. If you are based in the Thames Valley region and want to help people at their most vulnerable moments, this could be the role for you.

Every 20 minutes, someone is killed or seriously injured on UK roads. For families affected, the emotional and practical challenges are immense. As a Caseworker, you will provide direct, trauma-informed care to individuals and families suffering from the sudden bereavement or life-altering injury of a loved one. Working mostly remotely, with home visits to service users, you’ll offer vital emotional and practical support—including helping them access therapeutic resources, financial assistance, and guidance through the complexities of medical and legal processes.

This role is flexible, allowing you to structure your own working pattern within weekdays from 6 AM to 8 PM. While travel is required, you’ll have control over your diary. The work is challenging but immensely rewarding, requiring resilience, empathy, and a dedication to making a real difference in people’s lives.

Key Responsibilities

• Providing direct support to road victims and their families in the Thames Valley region, following Brake’s trauma-informed model of care.
• Managing a caseload of service users, ensuring their emotional, practical, and advocacy needs are met.
• Undertaking comprehensive needs assessments and creating individualised support plans
• Offering emotional and practical support—thiscan include helping families access therapeutic resources, financial aid, or even facilitating keepsakes to honour the memory of their loved ones
• Liaising with professionals, including police officers, Family Liaison Officers, mental health services, coroners, GPs, and other support organisations.
• Advocating for victims within medical, legal, and social services to ensure their voices are heard.
• Providing support through multiple channels, including in-person, remote calls, video chats, and messaging, depending on service user preferences.
• Completing safeguarding assessments and escalating concerns to the Designated Safeguarding Lead when needed.
• Maintaining accurate case records in compliance with data protection policies.
• Engaging in external clinical supervision to manage personal resilience and well-being.
• Participating in team meetings, training, and professional development to ensure the highest standard of service delivery.

What We Offer

• £26,000 per year (initial one-year contract, with funding in place and potential to extend).
• Flexible working hours—working pattern can be shaped around your needs.
• Mostly remote work, with travel to service users’ homes or safe meeting places (mileage expenses reimbursed).
• Death in service benefit, to the value of 2 x salary
• 36 days annual leave, including bank holidays and compulsory end of year shutdown
• Employee assistance program, including counselling, legal and financial advice.
• External trauma consultant support to aid in caseworker resilience.
• Structured induction, training, and ongoing developmentincluding in trauma-informed support and risk management.

Who We’re Looking For

Essential Requirements:

• A full, clean UK driving licence and access to your own vehicle.
• Resident in the Thames Valley area.
• Experience in frontline support services, preferably involving sudden bereavement or heightened vulnerabilities.
• Strong advocacy and research skills to liaise with multiple organisations on behalf of service users.
• Competency in I.T skills to work remotely.

Desirable Experience:

· Comprehensive understanding of the processes involved in the criminal justice system and coronial process

Personal Qualities:

• Self-motivated and resilient—able to navigate emotionally challenging situations.
• Empathetic and compassionate, with a commitment to helping others.
• Adaptable and creative, able to tailor support methods to individual needs.
• Strong communication and interpersonal skills, able to collaborate with professionals and service users alike.

Equality, Diversity & Inclusion

Brake is passionate about creating an inclusive workplace that values diversity. We welcome your application whatever your background or situation. We particularly welcome applications from those who are part of the global majority, the LGBTQIA+ community or disabled. We are proud to be a disability confident employer. We don’t want you to ‘fit’ our culture, we want you to enrich it. So, if you have a passion for making a difference and share in our vision for a world where no one is killed on our roads, we would love to hear from you