Job Details: Salary range: £33,291 - £36,345 per annum Work location: 4 Frampton Street, London, NW8 8LF Hours per week: 36 Contract type: Fixed term until 30 June 2026 Vetting requirements: Enhanced DBS Check Closing date: 18 May 2025 Interview date: Week commencing 26 May 2025 About Us: THE EXTRAORDINARY STORY OF GRACE’S PASSION AND DEDICATION The Environment & Communities Directorate in Westminster City Council is a world of extraordinary stories. Where dedicated people like Grace are using their skills and passion to progress environmental action in the heart of London. It was at university where Grace first started campaigning for improved recycling facilities, water refill stations, and other eco-friendly initiatives. When she saw the real difference people could make when they came together, she knew she wanted to dedicate her career to community action for the planet. When she joined us as Principal Engagement Officer, Climate Emergency, she quickly established herself as a passionate advocate for community outreach, engaging various stakeholders across Westminster in the social causes, impacts and solutions to climate change, air pollution, and biodiversity loss. Grace became a driving force behind our first Citizens’ Climate Assembly, which took place across two weekends in the summer of 2023. Fifty residents were chosen at random from across our diverse communities to come together, learn about the climate emergency, and deliberate how we overcome the barriers to becoming a net zero city by 2040. The assembly produced several recommendations which have informed the evolution of our Climate Emergency Action Plan. Due to the success of this initiative, we’re holding more assemblies to continue community involvement in local decision-making. To see the work of the Westminster Citizens’ Climate Assembly, click here. The Role: As an Assistant Practitioner with our Changing Futures Specialist Team you can make your own powerful contribution to Westminster’s success. The Changing Futures Programme is a central government funded initiative that aims to improve outcomes for people experiencing homelessness, offending behaviour, substance misuse, mental health needs, domestic abuse and other challenging disadvantages. It also provides local services including tenancy sustainment support and projects that work with chronically dependent drinkers. Your role will be within Changing Futures Specialist Team, a multidisciplinary team which focuses on effecting change at an individual, service, and system-wide level. The highly skilled Specialist Team work directly with young adults experiencing multiple disadvantage and adopts a compassion focused approach. In this important introductory role, you will work alongside your practitioner colleagues to deliver responsive, relational and trauma-informed support to young adults. You will use a combination of practical support, advocacy, and therapeutic interventions to support service user’s emotional responses, help them feel empowered to manage difficult emotions and improve their social inclusion and access to resources. This is a role in which you’ll develop your understanding of the causes behind complex behaviours, and over the course of a fixed term contract you’ll be given training and experience to enable you to apply for a Specialist Practitioner role when this becomes available. As you develop your skills and knowledge, you’ll begin to support other teams and organisations to create a ‘no wrong door’ approach, and act as a problem solver and system navigator. Please refer to the Job Description for more information. About You: With proven experience of working in a support setting with young people (preferably between the ages of 18-25) facing multiple disadvantages, you should have some practical understanding of homelessness, offending, substance misuse, domestic abuse, mental health issues, youth work or education. Capable of engaging positively with people and building strong and dependable relationships with service users, you’ll also be an active participant in meetings that deliver effective partnership and joint working arrangements. Capable of using your excellent communication skills to share your ideas, concepts, or findings with a diverse range of stakeholders, you’ll be ready to adopt an open, non-judgemental and curious approach towards challenging behaviour. Able to identify, assess and manage the risks and safeguarding issues associated with multiple disadvantages. Strong interpersonal skills, with the ability to listen and understand the issues being faced by our service users, but the confidence to challenge and negotiate when necessary. Committed to promoting the team’s practice model and trauma informed approach to its work, and capable of learning new information and adapting quickly to new ways of working, you’ll be ready to constructively reflect on your practice and develop your future approach based on these ideas. When it comes to qualifications, you should be educated to GCSE level (or its equivalent) while any personal experience as a recipient of support services relating to homelessness, offending, domestic abuse, substance misuse or mental health would be desirable. Westminster City Council is committed to supporting Care Leavers into the workplace. Care Leavers seeking their first job and who wish to be considered under our scheme, will automatically be invited to interview should they meet the essential criteria for the role. What We Offer: Westminster is an amazing place. We are home to more than 200,000 residents from all backgrounds, over 50,000 vibrant and vital businesses and three-quarters-of-a-million people work in Westminster. Westminster City Council’s strategy is to work towards a Fairer Westminster. A Fairer Westminster is one in which our communities are at the heart of our decision-making and help to determine the city’s future. By working directly with our communities and other partners, we can build a more inclusive city that celebrates our diverse communities, and where residents, workers and visitors from all backgrounds will feel welcome and safe. At Westminster City Council, we pride ourselves on being an inclusive workplace and employer of choice. We encourage and welcome applications from people from all backgrounds and aim to have a workforce that, at all levels, represents the communities we serve. We champion equality, diversity, inclusion and wellbeing and aim to create a workplace where everyone feels valued, has a sense of belonging and is empowered to be their best, that is the Westminster Way. To find out more about how we do this visit https://www.westminster.gov.uk/health-and-social-care/public-health-strategy-policies-and-reports/equality-duties As a forward-thinking Council we appreciate that people work in different ways, therefore our staff benefit from working a range of flexible working patterns as well as Agile working. The Council is a Disability Confident Employer. If you have declared a disability in your application, we guarantee an interview if you meet the essential criteria of the job. If you are invited for interview, you will be asked if you need any reasonable adjustments in order to attend, and we will make these wherever possible.