Role
Support Worker – Lambeth Individual Placement Support team
Salary £33,472 per annum
Contract: Fixed term until 31/03/2027
Location: Stockwell
Interview date: 25/06/2026
Responsibilities
The role will include:
- Meeting with clients 1:1: Build rapport, discuss job goals, preferences, and strengths. Help with benefits planning to ensure clients understand how work affects disability payments.
- Job development with employers: Visit local businesses to learn their hiring needs, advocate for clients, and negotiate job roles. You spend 65% of your time in the community, not the office.
- Rapid job search support: Help clients apply for jobs within 30 days of joining IPS. This includes CV writing, online applications, interview practice, and in‑work support planning.
- Coordinate with the clinical team: Join mental‑health team meetings to integrate employment goals into treatment. Share updates and problem‑solve work barriers with therapists, case managers, and psychiatrists.
- Provide in‑work support: Once a client starts work, offer coaching on workplace skills, disclosure decisions, and communication with supervisors. Step in early if issues arise to prevent job loss.
- Track outcomes and documentation: Record employer contacts, job starts, hours worked, and support provided. Use fidelity scales to ensure services follow IPS principles.
Qualifications
You will have:
- Relationship‑building & engagement experience: Comfortable building trust quickly with clients who have mental‑health conditions, clinicians, and employers. Empathy, active listening, and zero judgment.
- Job development skills: Confident speaking with employers, networking, and negotiating job roles. Able to explain how hiring clients benefits businesses.
- Knowledge of mental‑health & recovery: Understanding of common diagnoses, symptoms, medications, and their impact on work. Experience in mental‑health, vocational rehab, or social services is desirable.
- Benefits counselling basics: Knowledge of how earned income affects benefits or willingness to learn quickly, as accurate information is crucial before clients take a job.
- Time management & fieldwork: IPS is 65%+ community‑based. Able to juggle multiple clients, employer visits, and clinical meetings while maintaining strong administrative skills.
- Fidelity to IPS principles: Experience with evidence‑based practice is advantageous. Familiarity with key principles such as zero exclusion, client‑driven job search, rapid placement, and integrated teamwork, and willingness to track data and participate in fidelity reviews.
Benefits
- Generous holiday allowance – 29 days per year plus 8 public holidays (pro‑rata).
- Pension – we contribute 6.5% to your pension when you contribute 1.5%.
- Excellent development opportunities – career progression, regular supervision and appraisals, and learning programmes to support your career with Thames Reach.
- Well‑being support – 24/7 employee assistance programme and opportunities for TOIL.
- Life assurance – four times your annual salary and critical illness cover.
- Other benefits including a blue‑light discount card, interest‑free season ticket and cycle‑to‑work loans.
EEO and Inclusion
Thames Reach is committed to achieving a diverse workforce that reflects the communities we serve. We value, respect, and celebrate diversity. We welcome and encourage applicants from all sections of the community regardless of their history of homelessness, sex, race, disability, age, sexual orientation, or religious belief.
Background Checking
Thames Reach is committed to safeguarding. Applicants must be willing to undergo pre‑employment screening appropriate to the post, including, but not limited to, checks with past employers and the Disclosure and Barring Service. Having a criminal record will not exclude you from applying, but you will be asked to provide further details as most posts are considered exempt from the Rehabilitation of Offenders Act 1974.
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