PLEASE NOTE - Applicants will only be considered if you provide both a CV and Cover Letter
The role is only open to women, in accordance with the sex-based exemptions of the Equality Act 2010 pursuant to Schedule 9, Part 1.
Criminal Justice Peer Mentor Advisor
Salary: £29,113 (pro rata, per annum)
Location: West Yorkshire
Hours: 37 hours, full-time
Closing date: 12pm, 9th September 2026
Interview date: 23rd September 2026
Together Women is looking for an outstanding Criminal Justice Peer Mentor Advisor. The peer-mentor advisor will engage with and provide intensive support to women on Probation.
They will be required to support women with overcoming issues surrounding their personal wellbeing, mental health, accommodation, finance, employment, relationships, lifestyle, social inclusion, and dependency and recovery. The particular focus of this role will be to support women through the Social Inclusion pathway across West Yorkshire.
Join Our Team
We are an award-winning organisation, led by and for women. You can become part of the Together Women team if you are driven and passionate about working within a women-centred support service which advocates for systems change. We are seeking someone with excellent interpersonal skills, a can-do attitude, and the confidence to manage a wide range of duties. We are looking for a dynamic individual with strong analytical skills and a proven capacity to manage detailed processes.
If this sounds like you, we would love to hear from you! For further information or an informal chat about the role, please contact Kaalen Holliday on [email protected] or call 0113 380 8900.
What we can offer you - Employee Benefits:
- 25 days holiday increasing by one day per year to a max of 30 days, plus public holidays
- Pension scheme with 5% employer contribution
- Annual cost of living increase up to 4%
- Enhanced Training and Induction programme covering all areas of Together Women’s work
- Access to our Employee Assistance Programme with discount offers and free telephone counselling service
- Access meditation and other online wellbeing support on our wellbeing platform
- Employee eye-care scheme and free eye tests
- Organisation-wide away days
- Career development pathways
Role Summary
In our gender-specific Centres, we provide holistic support to women by women, to overcome challenges and address needs. We help women build upon their strengths and work through any barriers that are preventing them from progressing and achieving their potential.
The Criminal Justice Peer Mentor Advisor will engage with and provide intensive support to women on Probation and will be particularly required to support women with overcoming issues around their:
- Personal Wellbeing
- Mental Health
- Accommodation
- Finance, Benefits and Debts
- Employment, Training and Education
- Family and Significant Others
- Lifestyle and Associates
- Social Inclusion
- Dependency and Recovery
This role will be part of the Women’s Criminal Justice Team, delivering an inclusive and supportive programme driven to achieve the best for local communities. The particular focus of this role will be to support women through the Social Inclusion pathway across West Yorkshire. We manage centres in Leeds, Bradford, Wakefield, Huddersfield, Halifax and HMP Newhall.
You will work closely with external organisations, across West Yorkshire, to extend access to social inclusion/ mental health services, to encourage women to access existing resources, as well as working to build new opportunities. You will support women to build upon their strengths and work through any barriers that are preventing them from progressing and achieving their potential.
This role requires agile working, which will include being office based, delivering within the community and working from our multiple locations, therefore you will need to be able to work effectively independently, and as a dispersed team member, under pressure to meet challenging deadlines. You may also be required to provide in-reach support to women in custody.
Key Accountabilities:
Responsible for a caseload of women, to whom you will provide high quality customer support via the following:
- Assist women in identifying their own needs and supporting them to progress using a strength based and trauma informed approach to reduce the likelihood of further offending.
- Provide flexible, pro-active outreach support to vulnerable women who may be reluctant to engage with services or who need additional support to comply with Court/Prison Licence requirements, reducing the likelihood of breach or recall to custody.
- Accompany women to appointments in the community, acting as advocate as required.
- Facilitation and delivery of therapeutic group-work activities to women.
- Work with other practitioners within the Partnership to review and monitor women’s progress against agreed support plans.
- Determine the nature and extent of treatment and support that is appropriate to develop social capital and rehabilitation for women.
- Promote the programme using branded literature and materials throughout the community
- Contribute to the Development of a cohort of peers who can support learners.
- Establish community focus and development approaches to ensure that all women accessing the service have effective sustainable support networks in place.
- Identify and support access to community resources to support women in the successful exit from the programme.
- Working within and alongside an integrated model of care involving Health, Criminal Justice System and Social Care professionals.
- Safeguarding vulnerable women from self-neglect, abuse and harm by acting in accordance to Together Women’s Safeguarding Policies and Government Legislation
- Encouraging feedback from women using the service in order to promote quality assurance.
- Contribute to measuring and monitoring systems as required.
- Ensure all necessary records are properly maintained in line with policies on client files, finance and administration.
- Use evaluation, learning, experience and use feedback to support service development.
- Manage and update own skills base to ensure quality service delivery and personal development in role.
Additional Accountabilities
The post holder is to fulfil additional accountabilities specific to the Peer Mentor Specialism:
- Lead on the development of partnerships for women to access a variety of work and/or education placements ensuring equality of access across West Yorkshire localities.
- To act as a single point of contact for West Yorkshire Criminal Justice Key Workers to access support and advice relating to Education, Training and Employment, particularly with vulnerable women and those who have Criminal records.
- To act as a single point of contact for West Yorkshire Criminal Justice Key Workers to access support and advise relating to obtaining long term work or education opportunities for women with Criminal records.
- To contribute and coordinate training to West Yorkshire Criminal Justice Key Workers, in relation to supporting women to improve their job opportunities.
- Contribute to the development and maintenance of external partnerships relating to Education, training and employment support for Together Women service users.
Role Requirements
Essential Criteria:
SKILLS:
- Successfully prioritise own workload, including agreeing and meeting targets/ priorities, under pressure.
- Effectively motivate and enable community members and organisations to work together to meet required outcomes
- Excellent written and verbal communication skills with diverse audiences
- Ability to communicate effectively with other staff/volunteers within your team in order to meet outcomes
- Excellent ICT skills using a variety of packages e.g. able to collate monitoring information and produce learning tools.
- Evidence of developing and using IT packages to monitor impact of services.
- Experience of case management and recording
- Ability to build rapport and demonstrate high levels of empathy whilst maintaining professional boundaries
EXPERIENCE:
- Experience Supporting individuals to obtain work, who hold Spent and Unspent Criminal Convictions.
- Experience of supporting individuals with a range of health and wellbeing needs
- Effectively working in a team setting.
- Collaborative working with partners in other organisations.
- Experience of the delivery of services for vulnerable women
- Experience of supporting women to improve their confidence and overall wellbeing
- Experience of working with offenders
- Experience of working with women in a support role
KNOWLEDGE/UNDERSTANDING
- Knowledge and understanding of the issues faced by women in the criminal justice system
- Knowledge of the criminal justice system
- Knowledge and understanding of the health care system.
- understanding of different mental health conditions and the impact they may have on service users.
ATTITUDE AND DISPOSTION
- Commitment to Together Women’s aims and values
- Commitment to respecting diversity and anti-discriminatory/anti-oppressive practices
- Commitment to personal development, learning and reflective practice
- Open to change in line with the needs of the service/organisation
- A commitment to working in partnership with service users and services
- An ability to work flexibly according to needs of the service
- Resilient
Desirable Requirements:
- Experience & competence in report writing
- Experience of running training sessions & workshops
- Knowledge of child protection issues
- Experience of outreach work
- Relevant NVQ or equivalent at Level 3 Advice and Guidance
- An understanding of the particular problems faced by women offenders with dependants
- Level 3 Teaching and/or assessing qualifications (TAQA/CAVA etc).
Our competency framework: qualities we are looking for in candidates:
Client focus
Service Provision
- Commitment and enthusiasm for working with our customer group
- Empathy with client group
- Manages caseload and delivers support as per the requirements of the service contract and the internal quality audit framework requirements
Recording & monitoring
- Maintain case files and administrative/monitoring systems effectively
Interpersonal Skills
Working with others:
- Builds and maintains effective working relationships, with customers and stakeholders; within the organisation and external to it
- Manage and ensure that clear professional and emotional boundaries are established
- Demonstrates a keen understanding of the ability to adapt one’s approach when working with different groups (e.g. customers, partner agencies, stakeholders and colleagues)
Communication
- Presents spoken and written information clearly and appropriately and to a high standard
Diversity
- Builds trust and demonstrates respect for others, showing an awareness of the impact on own behaviour on others
- Treats everyone fairly and consistently
- Demonstrates an open and non-judgemental approach, seeking to understand others’ experiences and perspectives.
- Demonstrates efforts to provide inclusive environments, culturally specific support, and promotes a feeling of psychological safety for all women.
Personal effectiveness
Risk management
- Works in line with policy and procedure
- Applies and promotes risk management
- Aware of the need for confidentiality in dealing with information; of when confidentiality should be preserved and of the circumstances when it is right to reveal confidential information and to whom to is right to do so
Approach to work
- Willing to learn and develop
- Plans, organises and implements work, on own initiative with minimum direct supervision
- Flexible and creative approach at work; able to adapt to the changing needs of the program
- Ability to manage time, prioritise and meet deadlines
- Organised approach, with keen admin skills and attention to detail
- Makes clear decisions and deal positively with challenges
We actively encourage applications from women from a variety of backgrounds, and with a range of skills and experiences. We are particularly interested to hear from Black, Asian and minority ethnic women and women who have personal experience of the criminal justice system. This post is open to female applicants only as being female is deemed to be a genuine occupational requirement under Schedule 9, Paragraph 1 of the Equality Act 2010.
To apply: Please submit your up-to-date CV with a cover letter setting out how you meet the criteria for the role and outlining your interest in the position.
PLEASE NOTE - applications without a cover letter will not be considered.
Please also complete our equality and diversity monitoring form -
The information you provide will:
- not be used as part of the selection process;
- not be seen by the interview panel;
- only be used for statistical purposes. No information will be published which allows any individual to be identified.
Job Type: Full-time
Pay: £29,113.00 per year
Benefits:
Application question(s):
- Please make sure you have attached a detailed cover letter outlining how you meet the skills and requirements outlined in the job description before submitting your application.
Work Location: In person
