Asylum and Refugee Housing Support Worker

Kineara has a new vacancy for an experienced Asylum and Refugee Housing Support Worker to join our small and dedicated team in this new project supporting recent granted refugees to find accommodation.  

Asylum and Refugee Housing Support Practitioner   

Salary: £ 16 per hour 
Contract and term:  Self-employed 12 month contract, with a 3-month probation 
Hours: 35 hours per week Mon – Friday 
Location: Flexible, with time split between our office and partner organisations office in Southwark, local community and working from home 
 

About the project  

Set up by the Southwark Community Refugee Forum, alongside Southwark local community and charity organisations. Kineara provides a weekly drop-in surgery at the St Giles Center giving support and advice to refugees struggling to find PRS due to many barriers, including language. In 2023 the collaboration was formed to respond to the increasing need for housing support to asylum seekers with newly granted refugee status after the Home office made changes to the way they process asylum seekers.   

After 9 months of delivery, we are excited to have secured funding to deliver this work fulltime alongside our PRS Renters Support Programme in Southwark. We will provide crucial crisis support to vulnerable renters and are looking for a passionate housing support worker to be part of the next phase of the project.   

About Kineara  

Kineara is a unique community interest company that supports people in poverty across London who facing barriers to housing, employment and education. We identify and address barriers by providing holistic support for families, vulnerable adults, and school pupils, and deliver intensive one-to-one interventions to those in need of extra help through challenging times. We use holistic, trauma-informed methods, partnership working and a flexible, non-judgemental approach that puts the needs of those we work with first.   

About the role  

We are looking for an experienced, enthusiastic, and energetic support worker to take up a full-time role within our organisation as a Housing Support Practitioner in our small and dedicated team. The role will be based mostly in Southwark, and you will be working in partnership with the Council’s housing officers and resettlement workers, refugee support organisations, community services. The role involves coordinate tailored support for each client to find and sustain tenancies, mediating with landlords where necessary and providing housing advice. The objective of this programme is to support access to PRS properties, provide information about housing market and polices, help set up sustainable tenancies, increase employment opportunities, improve wellbeing, and increase educational outcomes. You will be working in partnership with other stakeholders, such as council and refugee support professionals to improve family health, build relationships and engage families and individuals and their networks of support.   

About you  

You will have experience of working with individuals with complex needs. You will be an enthusiastic person who is self-motivated, confident and thrives when working independently with a passion to support change. You will have excellent interpersonal skills, experience delivering holistic support, be a solution-minded thinker, have a good understanding of strength-based approaches and be able work sensitively and empathetically with people in vulnerable circumstances. You will also have experience working in a systemic and therapeutic way and ideally have trauma informed training or experience. It is also important to us that you have the competency to work with people from a variety of cultural backgrounds. To work as part of a team and independently, the roles require you to think creatively and use the resources around you effectively. A good understanding of one of the following languages is an advantage; 

- Arabic  

-Kurdish sorani  

-Farsi/Dari 

-Pashto 

-Tigrinya/Amharic 

What you can expect from Kineara  

Kineara will offer you an opportunity to be part of a dedicated small team that works closely together while encouraging independence and autonomy. This is a busy and hands-on role where each day is different, and you will be based in our office in Southwark, at home, and in the community doing occasional home visits. The role will provide you with support and supervision from our experienced project manager, as well as the flexibility to work to your clients' needs. With us, you will have an active voice in the organisation and your input in how our organisation develops will be highly valued. We are committed to providing a nurturing environment in which our staff can develop their skills, take on new opportunities and challenges, and grow professionally.   

 We ensure that wellbeing of our staff is a priority. Kineara provides a wellbeing package for all practitioners to encourage work/life balance and self-care for our staff.  

HOW TO APPLY: Please send a CV and a cover letter explaining how you meet the criteria for the role. Please also include: 

• Why you wish to apply for this role 

• What you would like to gain from this role 
• Your relevant experience, knowledge and skills, based on the person specification above. 
• What other qualities you have that you could bring to the role 
• Whether you have an up-to-date DBS and DRB check. 
• When you are available to begin work 

We look forward to receiving your application!