05/09/2026
CHESS Homeless is Recruiting
Support Worker
Salary Scale: £26,500 (£27,474 Pro rata per annum depending on experience.)
Working hours: 37.5 hours weekly Monday to Sunday between the hours of 8am and 9pm including weekends, and bank holiday working.
The Support Worker role is to provide practical support and guidance to service users who have experienced homelessness. The support will be effective and responsive to equip individuals to move on independently. The role will involve partnership working with relevant agencies for a joined-up approach.
Key Responsibilities:
Assess the needs of homeless individuals approaching CHESS for support and help the team identify suitable applicants for CHESS accommodation.
Deliver high quality support and guidance, developing support plans with individuals, that reflect their ambitions and aspirations with clear actions for achieving these.
Make appropriate referrals to agencies regarding accommodation and specialist support.
Assist in providing broader homelessness prevention services including giving advice, support, advocacy, making homeless applications and contributing to eviction prevention work as assigned from time to time.
Effectively and professionally manage a case load of residents as allocated.
Work to maintain expertise in regard to what accommodation options are available and ensure residents understand their rights and options. Providing information and advice on welfare rights, housing options, tenancy rights and responsibilities, and advocacy and assertiveness skills support in these areas.
Work with clients to identify their own housing issues, give advice and support them in addressing these issues.
Actively support residents to achieve tangible progress in areas such as tenancy management, independent living skills and training/education.
Assist with the transfer of moves for service users in, out and within CHESS accommodation.
Service Delivery:
To ensure residents receive a welcoming, supportive and positive experience whilst accessing CHESS services.
To build warm, positive relationships with service users, keeping their best interests at heart.
To complete support referrals, risk assessments, support plans and meetings.
To ensure all service users have an accurate, fully maintained electronic case file.
Contribute to risk assessments and safeguarding plans.
Provide person-centred support to help residents achieve personal goals and aspirations for independent living, training, employment and education.
To work with clients to improve skills and overcome barriers so they are able to successfully move on to independent housing
Working with residents throughout their stay in CHESS accommodation with regular meetings focussed on clients working towards personal goals and celebrating success.
Motivating and facilitating residents to be actively involved in meaningful daytime activity including skills development, training, volunteering, employment, healthy activities.
Working with residents to help them learn, or improve, their practical life skills (eg budgeting, paying bills, planning meals) needed for their survival in independent housing.
To support and promote diversity and equality of opportunity in the workplace.
Person Specification
Behavioural Competencies
A proactive, solution focused attitude
Self-motivated and self-disciplined
Focus on achieving results for clients and funders
High level of persuasive and negotiating skills- Able to resolve conflict
Tenacity and an innovative attitude
Be able to work alone following the lone working policy and procedure
Must have good interpersonal/communication skills and be able to work within a team.
Desire to learn new skills and navigate IT systems
Confidential
To be able to represent the Charity and its Ethos in the community
Able to deal with challenging behaviour in a calm manner.
Other requirements for the role:
A full driving licence is required for this post to facilitate house checks, support activities and moves
This role is subject to the satisfactory completion of a DBS check
Job descriptions are a general outline of the duties and responsibilities of the post holder and may be amended by CHESS Homeless as the service develops and the expectations of the role change. The post holder may be required to undertake other duties as may reasonably be required from time to time.
Current CHESS Homeless job vacancies across Chelmsford and Essex, helping adults experiencing homelessness rebuild their lives.
