Drug and Alcohol Worker (Complex Needs Engagement)
Complex Needs Engagement Worker
Job Description
Role
Complex Needs Engagement Worker
Service
Location:
Hours: 22.5 hours per week. Some evening and weekend work will be required.
Reports to
Contract
Fixed term until 31 st March 2026
The Service
The Swansea Barod service aims to engage drug and/or alcohol users and/or their concerned others in Swansea’s substance use treatment system and support them when accessing it. Barod staff will support individuals to address substance-related issues, access appropriate interventions, reduce physical dependence and related health problems and improve physical, psychological, family and social functioning. Barod Swansea works with substance users and their families, friends and carers in both community and criminal justice settings. Barod supports service users and their loved ones to sustain the gains they make in treatment by providing aftercare and peer support to help build social capital and prevent relapse. Barod is aimed at adult drug and/or alcohol users aged 18 years of age and over, and their families, friends and carers.
Role Purpose
The Phase 2 Drug and Alcohol Engagement project’s main objective is to enhance the work currently undertaken by Homelessness Strategy and partnership agencies to provide a multi-agency service focused on addressing the needs of the homelessness cohort of people with complex and multiple needs in the Swansea Bay area.
The Engagement Worker roles will provide intensive case management support to people identified as members of the target cohort, which were highlighted by the Swansea.
This proposal requests that this service be awarded funding to allow it to become a more visible function within the wider homelessness service provision for people who use substances and are homeless or vulnerably housed.
The Engagement workers focus on conducting assertive case management in the above-mentioned areas by identifying, approaching, engaging with, and assisting those individuals with complex and multiple needs. The needs of the target group span three key areas:
1.Drug and alcohol use (including public injecting).
2.Homelessness, rough sleeping and vulnerably housed.
3.Anti-social behaviour, begging and criminal behaviour; and
The post-holder will work mainly within the Engagement Service element of Barod Swansea. They will identify drug using individuals and their concerned others and provide harm reduction information and encourage them to access substance use support. The post-holder will conduct high level assessments with the service user and offer brief interventions, referral to time limited treatment and/or Tier 3 services. The post-holder will deliver Needle Syringe Programme services and outreach campaigns. Support will be agreed and written into an initial care plan at the outset of treatment. The post-holder is charged with delivering quality services to substance using service users and concerned others, ensuring that high professional standards are maintained, output targets achieved, volunteers receive appropriate direction, are supervised and appraised and that the service works within established administrative and reporting procedures.
Main Duties and Responsibilities
* Raise awareness of substance use and related issues in communities
* Deliver Tier 1 Liaison and Targeted Screening Programme to professionals
* Provide targeted screening to high risk groups and training and train other professionals
* Promote services and interventions and provide supported referrals to appropriate services
* Deliver evidence-based and manualised brief interventions in group-work settings and on a one-to-one basis to stance users and concerned others
* Conduct high level assessments including risk assessment
* Deliver harm reduction initiatives including Naloxone training and Dried Blood Spot Testing Services
* Engage service users and concerned others via open access provision
* Refer to onto appropriate services
* Devise, with service users and concerned others, individually tailored time-limited support plans, based on a clear assessment of need that assist individuals in building social capital
* Actively influence and support service users and concerned others in co-production and service user involvement in shaping service provision
* Encourage active participation in mutual aid groups including SMART recovery, 12-step fellowship groups (NA/AA) and peer-led recovery hubs and service user groups
* Promote healthier lives, wellbeing, and active citizenship
* Research, develop and implement online recovery resources
* Promote and encourage service user and concerned other participation in local, regional, and national recovery events
* Research and produce information for publications, leaflets, and web pages
* Mediate on a service users’ behalf, for example, by writing letters, making phone calls, or attending meetings and providing supported referrals to related agencies
* Enter data onto the case management system, and use the system effectively to inform work with service users and concerned others
* Provide training or talks to internal staff or external organisations as required
* Support volunteers in the delivery of services
* Take up Barod’s arrangements for support and supervision and participate in all relevant internal meetings
* Co-operate with requests from management and administration
* Undertake other reasonable duties as requested, but which may not be specified within the job description
Person Specification
Ideally all these requirements must be met by the candidate on appointment.However, in certain circumstances a candidate may be appointed who does not meet a particular requirement. This is providing that the shortfall can be made good in a reasonable time, and the candidate brings other skills, knowledge or experience which are valuable to the role and the Organisation.
Qualifications and training
GCSE English Literature or Language, grade C or above (or equivalent).
Proven experience of delivering structured relapse prevention interventions/talking therapies/CBT
Level 3 Diploma in Health and Social Care (or equivalent)
Role-related knowledge, skills & experience
Ability to work effectively with people regardless of their ethnic, cultural, social backgrounds, their gender, age, religious belief, disability and sexual orientation.
Proven ability to network and build professional relationships
Experience of delivering harm reduction interventions to substance users
Experience of facilitating therapeutic interventions
Knowledge of substance use treatment and care pathways
Knowledge of the Welsh Government’s drug strategy and Recovery Framework
Knowledge of substance use including detoxification, withdrawal and management and evidence based therapeutic interventions
Interpersonal skills
Excellent IT skills: competency in Microsoft Word, Outlook, Excel, PowerPoint, and Internet Explorer.
Flexibility to work at multiple locations and flexible working hours outside of the normal working week.
Full, current driving licence and use of a car which is insured for business use.
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