At Catch22, we are proud of our reputation as a modern and progressive employer. Our 1,300 colleagues and 300 volunteers work at every stage of the social welfare cycle, supporting over 60,000 individuals from cradle to career. Our work spans education, social justice and rehabilitation, children's social care, family support, social action and getting people into work.

Our Hampshire 24/7 Substance Misuse Service is a county wide, community engagement based service offering targeted and specialist treatment to young people aged 25 years and under. We are a multi-professional team with a designated worker in each district of Hampshire, supported by our partnership with Inclusion Recover Hampshire, and Parent Support Link

We are a forward thinking, person centered service with a high level of credibility among young people. We work with young people to help them achieve the "3 Ps" of our vision. To have a purpose in life, to have a good place to stay and to have good people around them. We achieve this in Hampshire by working in partnership with other agencies to to support young people who are misusing substances..

We are looking to recruit an enthusiastic Substance Misuse Practitioner, experienced in working with young people. You will be working with young people up to age 24, young carers and the children of substance misusing parents.

You will join a friendly team, co-located with the local adult Substance Misuse service. We aim to deliver an integrated offer of support, using a variety of therapeutic interventions. There is regular training on offer and clinical supervision.

As a Substance Misuse Practitioner, your main duties will include: 

• Providing an integrated targeted, specialist and transitional structured treatment interventions for young people up to age 24 referred to the service
• Providing targeted interventions both 1:1 and group work for those young people identified via triage, assessment and care planning.
• Providing  sustained support to a pre-defined case load of young people  who are referred by means of effective assessment and care planning.
• Supporting young people where required through referral, triage and offer age appropriate interventions across the tiers of service provision.
• Providing consultation and information to other professionals from a range of settings
• Providing satellite services away from our central office bases where required, to offer clients a wide choice of accessing substance misuse services and to enable those with specialist requirements to have their needs met in appropriate settings.

In this role you will also:

• Carry out effective holistic assessment of the young person
• Organise, design and deliver a range of specialist and targeted interventions, based on the clients identified needs for young people aged 11 – 18. And transitional services for those aged 18 – 25 years.
• Develop, monitor, evaluate and report on the care plans for children and young people.
• Support young people to access appropriate sexual health and BBV services and to facilitate the offer of personalised Hep B/C tests for certain clients.
• Hold a caseload of up to 25 children and young people at any one time (dependant on need).
• Liaise effectively with other agencies and work in partnership with YOT case managers/CAMHS and wider partners to enable young offenders to address their substance misuse problems and reduce potential and presenting risks.
• Develop partnership and integrative care pathways with health services, partnerships within Inclusion22 to support associated physical and psychological health.
• Provide advice, support and guidance for professionals working with young people.
• Ensure affective participation and feedback from the children and young people to contribute to the service development.
• Maintain highly effective administrative and reporting processes. To support the implementation of the ILLY Care Path systems and maintain key performance indicators in line with service (PHE) deliverables.
• Ensure that you are up-to date on all relevant policies and procedures in line with local and governmental frameworks and practice standards.

To be successful in this role you will need experience of working in the area of substance misuse and young people and be keen to develop integrated partnership working. In addition we are looking for:

Essential criteria

• Experience of working with young people in a treatment and/ or prescribing setting for substance use/ misuse
• Experience of working with challenging and hard to engage young people
• Experience of working with young people in group and one-to-one settings.
• Excellent working knowledge of alcohol, drugs and their effects
• Knowledge of issues around substance misuse amongst young people
• An awareness of the current issues relating to at risk and vulnerable young people
• Knowledge of engagement and intervention strategies.
• Knowledge of Every Child Matters and other appropriate youth policies.

Desirable criteria

• Relevant professional qualification in substance misuse
• Relevant qualification in youth work studies
• Skills in Inter-agency working
• Training/group work – information education delivery.
• Specialist knowledge in CBT, MI, REBT or other relevant intervention skills
• Counselling qualification and/ or skills
• Previous work experience within a youth justice setting.
• Knowledge of social and policy issues affecting young people (e.g. youth justice etc.)
• Knowledge of support and referral agencies within Hampshire
• Previous work experience with disaffected teenagers

Skills and Abilities

• Excellent engagement skills, able to  motivate and enthuse young people
• Good organisational skills (for self and others)
• To be able to use a range of intervention and engagement styles as appropriate
• Work effectively in a team
• Be able to manage conflicting demands
• Being able to adopt a flexible approach to all aspects of work

A current driving licence and use of car are required for this role as you will need to travel across Hampshire.

There may be a requirement to work occasional evening and weekends

Salary: £25.500

This role is subject to an Enhanced DBS check.