Welfare Benefits Adviser

Citizens Advice Bury & Bolton (CABB) is a leading provider of social welfare law advice and information, supporting thousands of clients every year. We are a busy, client focused and dynamic service with a track record of delivering high quality advice face to face, over the phone and digitally.

Our communities are facing unprecedented challenges with continued rising costs. The rising cost of living continue to directly impact individuals and families, with more people than ever in negative budgets, debt and housing crises.

Our Welfare Benefits team provide a professional welfare benefits advice service, which enables clients to understand their entitlement to welfare benefits, eligibility criteria, help with applications and ensure clients have maximised their income where possible.

There's no 'average' day for our team, each client and case is different. You will work as part of a well-established team, providing a reliable and effective welfare benefits advice service, across all face to face and telephone advice channels and access points, utilised by Citizens Advice Bury & Bolton.

To be successful in this role you will be able to work in a trauma informed manner, with a high level of accuracy and attention to detail, exhibiting excellent listening and questioning skills.

About you

• Experience in delivering advice (preferably welfare benefits)
• Excellent interpersonal skills to engage with a diverse range of clients
• Organisational skills with the ability to adapt, prioritise deadlines and competing tasks in a fast-paced environment
• A genuine passion for continual professional development
• Be empathetic, compassionate and resilient, understand how to use trauma informed approaches and be adaptable to client needs
• Be resilient and adaptable

Key Elements and Tasks

Provide high quality tailored Welfare Benefits advice to clients through;

• Effective interviewing - using sensitive and questioning skills
• Offer comprehensive benefit checks, exploring and advising on eligibility
• Identify emergency advice issues, advising/supporting on dealing with these emergency issues including determining if food bank referrals are required
• Assess if grants/one-off support is available to client and advise on how to apply/support where possible
• Empower clients to set their own priorities
• Identify vulnerable clients who require additional support and act for them where possible
• Work closely with colleagues within the organisation and external partners to provide holistic advice and support to all clients
• Ensure that all work meets quality standards and the requirements of funders
• Maintain detailed case records for the purpose of continuity of casework, information retrieval, statistical monitoring and report preparation (using national case management system Casebook)

Key information

• Employer: Citizens Advice Bury & Bolton
• Locations: Hybrid
• Role Type: Permanent
• Working Hours: Full Time

Equality, Diversity, Inclusion & Belonging (EDI&B):

We believe inclusion is a social justice issue - a principle that underpins our EDI&B work. To that end, we particularly welcome applications from local individuals who are representative of the local communities we serve. This is not just a matter of diversity but of strategic importance to ensure our services are grounded in the realities of our communities.