Jobs

Community Support Worker - Early Help & Wellbeing

Permanent, Full Time

£25,395 to £32,131 per annum

Location: Harlow

The Team

The Early Help & Wellbeing Team is a welcoming, compassionate and innovative team to work in, offering preventative and early help to connect people to opportunities in their own communities and provide support that enables them to achieve personal ambitions, goals and aspirations.

Mental health social care is transforming into a new operational delivery model improving our early intervention and prevention offer to Essex residents with a focus on people currently not receiving services or falling through existing gaps. The offer is to ensure care act compliance across the system offering information advice and guidance and providing support to improve wellbeing outcomes. Within this service there will be a mixture of the team carrying out direct work alongside adults and completing care act assessments relevant to wellbeing outcomes and the completion of care act reviews.

The Opportunity

As a Community Support Worker, your role will include undertaking Assessments and Reviews with a focus on prevention and promoting wellbeing in line with our Statutory duties under the Care Act and to then generate a person-centred and outcome focused support plan.

Your role will also include delivering bespoke, short term direct intervention work with a therapeutic approach, in accordance with the care plan to help support the person to achieve their self-identified wellbeing goals. The role includes managing a caseload, including assessment of risk through direct work, within a quality assurance process. An element of the role will be to ensure the people we work with are safeguarded in line with ECC's statutory obligations.

Partnership working with both internal and external partners is essential to achieving the best outcomes for Adults and Carers. As a Community Support Worker, you will need to work proactively to develop sustainable relationships with internal and external colleagues. It is also really important that you demonstrate a commitment to learning and development to support yourself and the team to deliver the best service possible.

The Experience You Will Bring

• Experience of providing direct support to people to achieve their goals and an understanding of factors affecting positive mental wellbeing and/or neurodivergent conditions and providing advice and guidance is essential in this role.
• Ability to establish therapeutic relationships with service users, their families and carers. Supporting them to utilise self help options and bridging them to appropriate services.

• Strong communication skills and an ability to develop a rapport and engage with diverse groups of individuals.

• Utilising of providing direct work skills to improve a person's mental wellbeing.

• Linking in with local communities and services to understand the demographic in which you are working.

• Prepare and present clear assessments and other reports as necessary to set out the basis of decisions made. Maintain all records to a high standard in accordance with relevant legislation, policy and procedures.

• Provide information, written assessments, reports and statements to support other service professionals, managers and agencies in making decisions related to care.

• Undertake risk assessments and develop risk management plans.

• Ability to support positive risk taking.

• Be able to work flexibly across areas and teams as required by the service.

• Complete mandatory training required by ECC.

• You will use digital and technology solutions where they will meet the need and offer a more sustainable approach.

• An essential attribute for the role is to be 'curious' as thinking 'outside the box' is a must to achieve the best outcomes and to fully engage and utilise all that our community has to offer.

• You'll bring a strong ability to build effective relationships with adults and their families in times of challenge.

• You will have the drive and passion to want to make a difference, and a willingness to learn.
• Ideally you will have some experience of activity-based work with adults and some knowledge of legislative and policy guidance applicable within social care settings

Please note that although the job is West based, the role will require you to be mobile throughout the Essex County Council area. Therefore, the post holder will need to have a driving licence and access to a vehicle, or the ability to meet the mobility requirements of the role through other means.

Why Join Us?

In June 2025, the Care Quality Commission (CQC) rated our Adult Social Care services as "Good" with a score of 73%

"The local authority had a good structure and processes in place to enable people to be supported successfully, and support people to remain independent and live healthy lives. The workforce was passionate about supporting people to achieve these outcomes and the local authority had good knowledge of their area, the people living there and the demographics."

Our teams are busy, but they're also warm, welcoming, friendly and supportive. Our fantastic team managers are here to help you manage your workload and develop your practice.

We take your career just as seriously as you do, and we have a continuing professional development offer that's second to none.

We welcome diversity because it makes us grow and we're determined to become a fully inclusive and an anti-racist organisation.

What We Offer

We'll support you to be your best and will offer:

• Ongoing opportunities for continuing professional development
• Flexible working options
• Employee wellbeing and counselling
• Lease Car scheme
• Life assurance of three times annual salary
• Volunteering leave
• 27 days annual leave (plus bank holidays), rising with service
• Employee Assistance Programme (EAP) - access to free and confidential information, support, and guidance from a team of highly qualified professionals.
• Employee Networks - communities to support you, connect you and help influence change at ECC

Whatever you want to achieve in your career, you can do it here.

Company: Essex County Council

Salary: Up to £32131.00 per annum

Location: Harlow, Essex

Sector: Housing

Sector: Community Services