Housing Solutions Occupational Therapist

Housing Solutions Team
Service core hours are Mon-Thurs 9am-5.30pm, Friday 9am-4.30pm.

Flexibility will be considered with regards to working patterns. Gateway is not a 7 day service. Weekend work requests will not be considered.

The Connected Lives Gateway Service is the front door for Hertfordshire residents seeking information and support around adult social care. We aim to prevent, enable, reduce and delay need by ensuring people access a wide range of information, advice, and preventive and enablement support in a straightforward and timely way.
Working within the Gateway Service, the Housing Solutions team offer specialist assessment across Hertfordshire for major housing adaptations. The team has a blend of community based Occupational Therapists and Community Care Officer Trusted Assessors who complete specialist housing needs assessments to identify major adaptation solutions to enable a person to have better access to the facilities within their homes. We explore personal strengths, their family and friends’ support networks, and using expert knowledge we connect people with things that will help individuals and families to get on with their lives, achieving prevention, reducing or delaying the need for statutory provision of care services.
You will work as part of the Housing Solutions team, and collaboratively with other partners and teams, both internally within Adult Care Services and externally with the Hertfordshire Home Improvement Agency, District and Borough Councils and Housing Associations. Using your knowledge of the Care Act and Housing Legislation you will complete complex assessments which promote person centred outcomes and make recommendations for major housing adaptations.
You will promote and support a strength-based assessment and practice approach to all interventions to maximise independence, health, and well-being by offering opportunities to prevent, delay or reduce the need for Adult Social Care.  This will require you to apply your creativity working with residents to ensure their safety and continued independence. Your knowledge of local services to support people to access appropriate community resources is also crucial as you will be using our Connected Lives Assessment approach, care planning and organising equipment or minor adaptations alongside our Social Workers and Occupational therapists.
It is crucial that you have knowledge and experience within the Social Care sector and beneficial to have relevant knowledge Social Care legislation such as the Care Act 2014, Mental Capacity Act 2005, and others. You will be competent in completing functional assessments and making recommendations for equipment and smaller adaptations/minor works and major housing adaptations.
An understanding of person-centred care is important as this is a key principle within Hertfordshire’s Connected Lives Practice to ensure people are supported to maintain and develop their independence.
You will need to be a confident individual, a good team player, an adaptable person, and a decision maker.  We need you to have the ability to work autonomously with cases to enable people to live independently in the community.  You will conduct community assessments with people to achieve desired outcomes. We need you to be able to work successfully with partners and many other agencies for the benefit of citizens.  Your self-organisation is key, as is a ‘can do’ attitude.