Peer Coordinator

Location: HMP Bronzefield (Prison based)

Salary: £24,000 per annum

Vacancy Type: Permanent, Part Time

Closing Date: 24th September 2025

Hours: Part-time, 17.5 hours per week

Vetting: Prison clearance will be required

About the Service

The Integrated Substance Misuse Service works with people in prison aged 18 and over who are identified as having drug or alcohol problems. Delivered within an integrated healthcare framework, the service provides a combination of:

• Clinical interventions
• Psychosocial substance misuse support
• Health & wellbeing interventions
• Accredited treatment programmes

This holistic approach ensures that individuals receive the right support while in custody, helping them move towards recovery and a healthier future. As a Peer Coordinator, you'll play a vital role in building the bridge between the substance misuse service and the prison population. You'll train and support service users to become Peer Supporters and Health & Wellbeing Champions, empowering them to provide peer-led interventions across the prison wings. These peer roles are essential in motivating and encouraging clients to take responsibility for their health and wellbeing while in custody. They also help to create a positive, supportive environment where individuals feel confident to access the services available to them.

Key responsibilities include:

• Recruiting, training, and supporting service users to become Peer Supporters and Health & Wellbeing Champions.
• Coordinating peer-led interventions across the prison.
• Acting as the main point of contact for peer supporters, ensuring they are fully supported and guided.
• Building strong partnerships with Forward Trust colleagues, prison staff, and external agencies to deliver joined-up services.
• Supporting clients to access interventions, address health and wellbeing concerns, and engage with recovery-focused programmes.
• Maintaining accurate documentation, ensuring data and outcomes are reported to required standards.
• Championing recovery and helping to embed a culture of positive change across the prison environment.

This role is dynamic, varied, and highly rewarding, you'll be at the heart of creating opportunities for people to support each other in custody.

What We're Looking For

We're looking for someone with energy, resilience, and a passion for supporting others through recovery. You'll be skilled in building trust, managing professional boundaries, and bringing out the best in people.

Essential skills & experience:

• Knowledge of the criminal justice sector and the challenges facing people in custody.
• Understanding of issues linked to substance misuse and the recovery agenda.
• Experience working within substance misuse services and/or the criminal justice sector.
• Experience delivering structured interventions and facilitating groups.
• Ability to develop, coordinate, and deliver training for peer support programmes.
• Previous experience providing a peer support service to a similar client group.
• Strong organisational and communication skills.
• Confidence to set clear professional boundaries while supporting clients.
• Commitment to equal opportunities, client confidentiality, and the principles of recovery.
• Ability to work effectively with a range of partners and communicate with people from diverse backgrounds in a supportive, sensitive way.

If you are motivated by the opportunity to empower others, build recovery-focused communities, and make a real impact in people's lives, we would love to hear from you.

About Us

We are The Forward Trust, the social enterprise with charitable status that empowers people to break the often-interlinked cycles of crime and addiction to move forward with their lives. For more than 25 years we have been working with people to build positive and productive lives, whatever their past. We believe that anyone is capable of lasting change. Our services have supported thousands of people to make positive changes and build productive lives with a job, family, friends and a sense of community.

We are committed to our cause and the work we carry out as a charity. Equally the wellbeing and the employees who work for us are also important. Joining us an employee, we will offer you the following benefits:

• Flexible working
• Training and development opportunities
• Simply Health Cashback Scheme (optional)
• Season Ticket Loan Scheme
• Cycle to work scheme
• Crisis Loan Scheme
• Electric Car Scheme
• 3 x Wellbeing Days (pro rata'd for part time employees)
• Access to Blue Light Card
• 25 days (rising to 30 with length of service) Annual Leave plus Bank Holidays
• Contributory Pension Scheme - Employer matched contributions of up to 6% in the first two years' service and up to 9% thereafter
• Death in Service Payment (2x annual salary)
• Critical Illness Insurance (subject to qualifying criteria)

To Apply

If you feel you are a suitable candidate and would like to work for the Forward Trust, please click apply to be redirected to their website to complete your application.