Community Caseworker

Job Description

Job Title

Location
Salary banding

Benefits

Contracted hours and FTE
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Community Caseworker
Community Renewal Rom Romeha - Govanhill
Govanhill, Glasgow
Pay band B2-1 to B2-5
FTE £24,733.80 to £28,683.60
Pro Rata 17.5 hours £12,366.90 to £14,341.60
Depending on experience

Employer pension contribution.
36 days annual leave pro rata
Free Access to Health Assured Employee
Assistance Programme and online Health Portal.
Loyalty scheme with up to 48 additional days
leave.
2 posts x 17.5 hours per week
Would consider full time for the right person
Neighbourhood Manager

ROMA EMPLOYABILITY CASEWORKER
Do you want to help make a difference to Roma Community Members Lives? Do you
want  to  challenge  discrimination  and  poverty?  Are  you  passionate  about  making
change happen? Then we really want you to apply for this role!
Applicants should apply by sending their C.V. which should be no more than 2 pages
and a cover letter/email to recruitment@communityrenewal.org.uk

Please note that applicants must be able to speak a language relevant to the Roma
community members e.g. Slovak/Romanian.

ROLE SUMMARY
This  role  will  combine  providing  one-to-one  casework  and  supporting  community
engagement activities across the Govanhill neighbourhood of Glasgow. Community
engagement  includes  working  with  community  groups  and  arranging  community
events. Close coordination with a wider team providing community engagement and
community casework is essential. We have some preference for people who could
add some specialist knowledge around either health, welfare advice or employability
(including employer engagement), however, this is desirable rather than essential.

This role is ideal for someone at any stage in their career who can demonstrate their
ability  to  provide  whole-person  whole-neighbourhood support.  We  are looking  for
people who can quickly learn our methodology and who can help build on people’s
strengths and foster their resilience/self-care.

INTRODUCING COMMUNITY RENEWAL TRUST
Community Renewal is a dynamic and innovative organisation at the cutting-edge of
work  towards  ending  persistent  poverty  and  inequity  in  Scotland.  We  work  in

deprived communities where we have been long-established to develop, deliver and
share better approaches based around whole-person, whole-neighbourhood support.
This means we always place people and communities in the lead: listening to them,
identifying  their  strengths,  supporting  them  on  their  terms,  and  building  their
capacity to flourish.

Community  Renewal  alleviates  poverty  by  engaging  and  forming  trusting
relationships with individuals, whole families and whole communities together then
supporting them by combining holistic case management (e.g. around income, work,
health,  wellness)  with  community  development  (e.g.  forming  new  community
activities/groups).  This  work  is  about  testing  change  which  can  inform  policy,  be
scaled up or replicated to achieve a much greater impact than our direct delivery
alone. A set of core values guides all the work of Community Renewal:
•  The most important element of any support relationship is listening to what the

person wants deep down and working alongside them to achieve it

•  To stay alongside people for as long as it takes
•  Many people find it hard to articulate what they want at first and so need to be
able to experience an environment of trust and safety in order to uncover buried
aspirations – this cannot be rushed

•  People don’t resist change – they resist being changed.
•  People in deprived communities already know what is required to improve their

lives – what they need is help with how to make it happen.

•  Compassionate listening is a basic human need and is central to the way that we

engage with people.

•  Every individual and community has assets
•  Sustainable  transformation  in  communities  is  possible  but  needs  a  long-term

commitment.

Pennywell/Muirhouse

A team of around fifty staff we deliver community services based around three key
neighbourhoods:
(Edinburgh),
Govanhill’s Roma (Glasgow). The full Community Renewal Group consists of the lead
charity Community Renewal Trust SCIO plus four subsidiaries: Caledonia Funeral Aid
CIC,  Community  Renewal  Rom  Romeha  (registered  as  Roma  Life  CIC),  Pennywell
Community Renewal Trust SCIO and Community Renewal Training & Consultancy Ltd.

(Edinburgh),  Bingham

ROLE SUMMARY
This role is an exciting opportunity to work with our multilingual and multi-skilled
team of
caseworkers/advisers, youth workers and community development specialists who
work  with  the  Roma  community  from  our  vibrant  office  within  the  Govanhill
neighbourhood.

The key skills and tasks required in this role are to work with members of the Roma
community to assist them to take control of their own lives, to build their capacity
and resilience, to help them to better understand health systems and how to access
these. To assist Roma community members into employment, volunteering, training
and/or education; this includes helping those in low paid, insecure work into better

paid secure employment and to plan with Roma community members activities and
events relevant to their culture, needs and raise aspirations.

Within this role it is important that you can build strong trusting relationships with
the client group, therefore it is a key requirement that you can communicate in a
language which is relevant to the Roma community living within our neighbourhood,
for example Slovak, Romanian, Romanes.

There  will  be  key  performance  indicators  relevant  to  this  post,  this  will  include
maximising participation of Roma community members, to assist with caseloads of
clients that are working towards employment/training/education/volunteering and
health goals. To assist with registered clients and assisting colleagues. Part of the
role will include facilitating group sessions, outreach work and 1:1 work with clients.

The  Roma  community  members  experience  some  of  the  very  highest  levels  of
deprivation  anywhere  in  Scotland.  They  face  high  unemployment  rates  and
challenges in accessing employment often due to factors such as language barriers,
discrimination and a lack of access to education and training. A  high per of Roma
people  have  multiple  life  limiting  health  conditions,  children  have  significantly
worse educational outcomes, with many not completing formal education. Yet, after
several years of focussed community development activities, there are some shoots
of hope, with a growing number of community groups and regular community events
have been created.

OBJECTIVES
Transformational case management (approx. 35% of your time)

Objectives:

-  Use active, compassionate listening as your main methodology.
-  Collaborate with colleagues through formal and informal case conferencing

to better support each client.

-  Work with colleagues to help clients be closer to the workforce and entering

employment, training or further education.

-  Understand and build on clients’ strengths, avoiding crisis support or a deficit

based “fix-it” model in almost all interactions.

-  Carefully manage a caseload to ensure that there is a constant movement of
clients joining your caseload and moving on to less intensive support. Ensure
movement of clients around case workers in the team is done carefully.
-  Use  the  Community  Renewal  Trust  Holistic  Assessment  methodology  with
almost  every  client,  seeking  transformational  results  to  break  the  cycle  of
persistent poverty and inequity rather than incremental change in their lives.
-  Work alongside people for as long as it takes, but at all times avoid creating
a dependency relationship. While it is a long-term relationship it cannot be
sustained  as  intensive  support  (for  example,  almost  no  client  would  be
expected to be seen as many as 12 times per year,  but that might include
three times in one week).

-  Use curiosity to identify with the client creative ways to improve their life.
Then ensure that the client is leading the change in their lives – most of the
actions  to  be  completed  between  sessions  should  be  theirs  to  complete
(normally with some support/guidance).

-  Connect clients to the support they need using careful introductions (rather
than signposting). Use the representation below in which you are the centre
of coordinating a client to benefit from wider support from across the system
towards their whole-person transformation.

Community Engagement (approx. 35% of your time)
Objectives:

-  Conduct  effective  and  systematic  Listening  Conversations  following  the

Community Renewal Trust’s proven methodology resulting.

-  Support the coordination and delivery of community events with the aim of

engaging new clients and meeting other strategic aims.

-  Support, under the coordination of the Neighbourhood Manager, development

of community groups/activities or community-led social action.

-  Take  joint  and  several  responsibility  in  keeping  the  office  welcoming  and

inclusive for community members, volunteers and staff at all times.

-  Ensure  that  community  members  who  do  not  need/want  formal  case
management (i.e. through the Holistic Assessment) can be briefly supported
with information.

-  Use these above community engagement objectives to systematically engage
new  clients  onto  the  team’s  caseload  who  can  benefit  most  from
transformational case management.

Specialist support (approx. 10% of your time)
Objectives:

-  Provide intensive support for people to build emotional resilience and self-
care to support their mental health needs or a chronic condition. This support
should be in group or one to one settings.
OR

-  Support  people  specifically  around  employment  through  our  employability
contract  (including  registration  and  evidence  process).  This  includes
supporting CV, job search and work to engage employers (including but not
limited to coordinating job fairs).

Reporting and monitoring (approx. 10% of your time)
Objectives:

-  Use the team’s paperwork and databases (no technical expertise needed) this

must include basic monitoring data.

-  Proactively and effectively collect feedback (including complaints) to support

our congoing quality improvement across the organisation.

-  Proactively write up and share internally case studies demonstrating learning

from both successes and failures.

Communications and Relationship Development (approx. 10% of your time)
Objectives:

-  Use  care  in  liaison  with  local  partners  to  ensure  trusting  relationships  are
formed and maintained with clients able to be introduced to known workers
at other agencies.

-  Development,  under  the  coordination  of  the  Director,  strong  and  trusted
relationships with local third sector and public sector partners with delivery
in neighbourhoods in which we deliver integrated services.

-  Develop and maintain a strong working relationship with the Marketing and
Communications  Manager,  following  their  lead  on  branding,  external
communications, marketing and internal communications.

-  Engage  effectively  and  proactively  in  team  meetings  and  organisational

activities to share insights/learning and build connections.

Other requirements
Objectives:

-  Complete  objectives  set  in  Performance  Review,  Probation  Reports,  our

Competency Framework and/or Appraisal Reports.

-  At  all  times  conform  to  organisational  policies  and  practices  around  data
management,  H&S,  safeguarding,  lone  working,  equalities,  environmental
management, and business continuity.

-  Deliver  agreed  for  which  you  are  responsible  which  were  agreed  in  our

internal regular Quality & Learning meetings (or similar).

-  Carry out other duties as reasonably requested.

Personal and Professional Development
Demonstrating  a  track  record  of  continuous  learning  and  personal/professional
development is a requirement of this role and evidencing that this is being actively
progressed must be evidenced at every appraisal. The post holder has responsibility
to actively participate in sessions organised by the organisation including training in
compliance/regulatory processes and meetings in which learning and improvement
is discussed for the purposes of quality management. The post holder is responsible
for  collecting  feedback  from  people  they  support  both  to  demonstrate  their  own
strengths and to understand how to improve what they do. This evidence of both
types of feedback about their work is required for every appraisal.

Key  professional  development  of  particular  relevance  to  this  role  includes:
leadership  skills;  coaching  skills;  understanding  of  benefits/housing  advice;
understanding of employment advice and employer engagement; skills to building
resilience and self-management.

ROLE REQUIREMENTS/PERSON SPECIFICATION

Essential
Expertise

Desirable
expertise

•  Evidence of at least some experience in providing one-to-one support

in a relevant role.

•  Evidence of understanding around compassionately listen to people and

build on their strengths (rather than trying to “fix it” for them)

•  Evidence of understanding about people’s lives in deprived

communities such as Govanhill.

•  Evidence of expertise providing one-to-one support in multiple

professional or volunteering positions of particular relevant (e.g.
coaching)

•  Evidence of expertise around mental health, self-care and building

resilience.

•  Evidence of employability, securing people better jobs and/or

employer engagement.

•  Evidence of expertise in compassionate listening and forming a

therapeutic relationship with a client.

•  Evidence of expertise in community development or related disciplines
•  Evidence of expertise in person-centred asset-based support which

builds on people’s strengths

•  Evidence of expertise in collecting, recording and analysing data,

monitoring information and feedback.

•  Evidence of experience working in deprived neighbourhoods similar to

Bingham, Magdalene and The Hays.

•  Evidence of experience working in a third sector environment.
•

in collecting, recording and analysing data, monitoring information and
feedback

•  Evidence of experience working with relevant partner agencies (e.g.
money advice, mental health charities, community groups etc).

Essential
Qualifications

•  None (but competent literacy and computer literacy will be essential)

Desirable
Qualifications

•  Coaching or similar training/qualifications
•  Community development or similar training/qualifications