Housing Advocate

Please ensure you clearly state whether you will be applying for the Part Time or Full Time role in your application.

This is a new and exciting role in Refuge, the post holder will be embedded within district borough housing teams to facilitate dual working that will ensure that survivors’ safety and housing needs are met. The housing advocate will be collocated within the council offices of their designated area to help facilitate:

• Close working relationships with Housing colleagues
• Provision of specialist knowledge relating to DA for Housing Officers and Homelessness Teams to draw on
• Specialist support for survivors at the moment of crisis
• Provision of advocacy; supporting survivors to access safe accommodation
• Joint working with the IDVA or Domestic Abuse Outreach services to ensure all the survivors’ needs are met.

This recognizes that many survivors will approach Housing at moments of crisis, when they are either considering fleeing, or have already fled.

The housing advocate will carry a caseload of survivors that require additional support. They will work closely with survivors of domestic abuse from the point of crisis, to provide high quality independent advocacy around housing needs.They will empower survivors by providing them with emotional, practical and individual safety support. They will ensure that survivors are provided with a safe, supportive and welcoming environment, enabling them to access their rights, make decisions and increase their life options.

Co-located housing advocacy is another form of community-based specialist domestic abuse advocacy support that focuses on victim/survivors’ self-identified needs, rather than needs defined by the service and any pre-defined actions the agency thinks victim/survivors should take. The work is undertaken with the victim/survivor around their individual needs and for a period dictated by need, not targets.