About the role

A fantastic opportunity has arisen to join our bank as a Welfare Officer, providing cover as required for the SSAFA RAF Service across the UK.

Our Bank Welfare Officers will provide direct and impactful welfare support to RAF personnel and their immediate family on an ad hoc basis when a full-time member of the team is unavailable to do so.

As a trusted and confidential source of support, you will assist our service users with challenges they are facing, from mental ill-health, difficult relationships, domestic abuse, financial and cost-of-living concerns, resettlement, housing, childcare, equality issues, bereavement, military discharge or deployment and many more - no day will be the same, as such this is a great opportunity to develop your knowledge and skills within the Welfare sector.

Our intervention is provided with consent on a non-statutory basis, and you will work with and engage our service users to develop appropriate interventions for individual outcomes.

Our service is transitioning to become more accessible and inclusive, digital technology plays a key role in this, as such you may be asked to use digital technologies to complement and enhance processes and service user experience.

You will work closely with RAF welfare teams, local authorities, health, education, civilian agencies, charities and other military organisations to ensure the best outcome for the service user.

About the Team

2024 marks 34 years since SSAFA began delivering an independent non-statutory, and confidential service, for the Royal Air Force community across the UK, and this is an exciting time to be joining as we were recently successful in our bid to continue delivering this service.

We are transforming our ways of working to be innovative, to ensure our service is even more inclusive and accessible to meet the needs of a modern RAF.

We are a hard-working team, from diverse professional backgrounds.  Although we all have our own area of responsibility, we support each other in delivering the best possible service to our military community.

Find out more about the 34 year history of the Service Personal Support & Social Work Service and hear from a colleague at RAF St Mawgan on our careers page.

About you

To thrive in this role you will have relevant experience of supporting adults, families and children/young people. You will be able to take a flexible and creative approach to problem solving. You will have excellent communication skills and be able to deliver presentations with confidence.

You will have used Microsoft Office 365 to a high standard. It is important that you have experience of planning and managing your own workload, with minimal supervision.

It would be advantageous if you have experience of carrying out assessments, preparing plans, monitoring and reviewing outcomes.

There will be some travel required and therefore you will need to be able to drive, have access to your own car and be flexible to spend nights away from home occasionally within the UK at short notice..

 About SSAFA 

SSAFA, the Armed Forces charity is a trusted source of support for serving personnel, veterans and their families in their time of need. In 2022 our trained teams of volunteers and employees helped more than 59,000 people, including veterans, serving personnel (regulars and reserves) and their families.  

SSAFA understands that behind every uniform is a person. And we are here for that person and their family, any time they need us and in any way, they need us.

Diversity and Inclusion at SSAFA 

SSAFA exists to support a diverse range of beneficiaries within the armed forces community, and we believe diversity within our teams is key to ensuring we can deliver our services effectively. We thrive on differences and believe it is critical to our success as a worldwide charity. SSAFA is proud to be an equal opportunity workplace that seeks to recruit, develop and retain the most talented people from a variety of backgrounds, perspectives, and skills. We therefore encourage applications from all genders, races, religions, ages and sexual orientations, as well as parents, veterans, people living with disabilities, and any other groups that could bring diverse perspectives to our business. 

SSAFA is committed to using the Disclosure & Barring Service to ensure we, as an employer, safeguard those we serve.  

Further information about the role 

Download a copy of the job description here.

If you have any queries or would like to speak to someone about this role, please Lynne Doherty, Lynne.Doherty@ssafa.org.uk for an informal discussion.  

No agencies please. Any unsolicited submissions from agencies will be accepted as a direct application from the candidate and no fees will be payable. 

How to apply 

Click on 'Start your application' now. 

If you need any adjustments to support you with the application process, please contact recruitment@ssafa.org.uk  

Closing date: Midnight on Monday 01 April 2024. SSAFA reserves the right to close the vacancy early if we receive a high volume of suitable applications. 

Interviews: Week commencing 08 April 2024