Early Help Family Practitioner

JOB DESCRIPTION

Organisation: London Borough of Waltham Forest

Salary: PO2 £41,442 - £44,331

Contract Type: Full-time, Permanent

Working hours per week: 36

Application Deadline: 19/01/2025

Proposed Interview Date(s): 27/01/2025

Reference:1595

About Us:

Bursting with culture, energy, and opportunity, the London Borough of Waltham Forest is a fantastic and exciting place to work.

We are a highly ambitious borough. Driven by culture and the innate creativity of our residents, we have developed new and innovative ways to build our communities. Our Council is relentlessly resident-focused, insight-led, digitally driven and commercially minded; a Council focused on meeting the needs of our existing and future residents.

London Borough of Waltham Forest is one of the Mayor of London's Good Work Standard employers. This accreditation is a proof of our commitment to creating a healthy, fair and inclusive workplace. This includes fair pay and conditions, workplace well-being, skills and progression and diversity and recruitment.

The Council's preference is for online application. However, if you have a disability and are unable to complete an online application, please email recruitment@walthamforest.gov.uk so we can arrange an alternative application method.

About the role:

Purpose

To contribute to the achievement of improved outcomes for Children and Families in Waltham Forest, through effective whole family interventions focused on two or more priorities from the Supporting Families Outcomes Plan:

• Anti-social behaviour & crime
• Education

• Children needing help
• Domestic abuse

• Worklessness
• Health

Design and carry out effective whole family interventions as the Lead Professional with a caseload of up to 20 families with multiple needs. Ensure continuity and consistency in delivery of early help assessments using the Our Family Journey tool with families, including Family Outcomes Planning and review through home visits, parenting support, chairing Team Around the Family meetings and professionals meetings. Carry out strength-based practice that builds skills, relationships and resilience, helping families to help themselves and each other.

Promote effective integrated working across the children's services system: develop effective working relationships with families and communities, within Families First, within the Early Help Division, and with professional partners from a range of agencies and sectors. Carry out multi-disciplinary and co-located team working and coordinate multi-agency Family Outcomes Plans that build skills and relationships, and improve outcomes for families.

In the London Borough of Waltham Forest, we take equality and inclusion seriously and are passionate about creating an inclusive workplace that promotes and values diversity and difference and is a true reflection of the diverse communities of Waltham Forest. We are committed to fostering an environment that empowers our workforce and gives them the freedom to bring their authentic self to work to provide excellent services to all.

>> Click here to download the Role Profile <<

Key Responsibilities:

• Safeguard the welfare of children, young people, and vulnerable adults you work with directly and those who you come into contact with.
• Provide evidence-based whole family interventions and strengths-based coaching for families that builds their skills, relationships, and resilience and helps children to be independent, resilient, safe, and well.
• Work in partnership with whole families in their networks and communities to enable children, particularly the most disadvantaged, to have full access to educational, health and other life opportunities and overcome barriers to learning and participation.
• Lead on the provision of appropriate and empowering parenting programmes and other forms of structured support for parenting, such as one to one parenting advice.
• Effectively manage a specified number of whole family intervention cases.
• Ensure that individual case records are up to date, accurate, and of the highest quality using the systems provided.
• one-to-one and group supervision
• Use the Our Family Journey tool - or appropriate valid early help assessment methods - to gather early help assessment information to support a multi-agency Team Around the Family intervention proportionate to needs and seeks to embed good practice around information sharing. Undertake home visits to families to support access to early interventions.
• Liaise and consult with a range of colleagues - across Early Help Division; Children's Social Care; Adult Services, including Mental Health and Housing; Police and Probation services; Mainstream Schools, Alternative Provision, Education Support Services; and with the voluntary and community sector - to improve outcomes for children.

Qualifications and Requirements:

Degree or equivalent or vocational qualification in relevant subject or area

Evidence of Continuous Professional Development

Knowledge, Skills and Experience

• Knowledge and understanding of key theories and principles relating to early childhood and family life.
• Sound knowledge of a range of legislation and policy frameworks in relation to children and young people, not least Children's Act 1989 and 2004, Working Together to Safeguard Children 2015
• Knowledge of signs and indicators of child abuse and neglect, and understanding of child protection issues.
• Experience of working with children and families with specific, multiple and complex needs.
• Experience of child engagement, child's voice work, and ensuring they remain at the centre of interventions
• Experience of family outreach work including home visiting.
• Experience of evidence-based and structured approach to recording practice
• Experience of using reflective techniques to evaluate and continuously improve own practice
• Knowledge and understanding of families from a range of cultures and communities.
• Experience of delivering evidence-based parenting programmes
• Ability to chair meetings such as the Team Around the Family (TAF) or professionals meetings
• Excellent interpersonal skills. Ability to negotiate and persuade and build and maintain effective working relationships at all levels. Ability to communicate with, engage and influence customers, partners and stakeholders.
• Experience of partnership working.
• Good planning and organisational skills, with proven ability to prioritise and co-ordinate workloads, monitor and evaluate work, to ensure deadlines are achieved.
• Proven initiative and judgement to identify and resolve problems
• Good ICT skills - both standard Microsoft applications and specialist systems.

Terms and conditions:

The below terms and conditions apply to this role:

Satisfactory employment references and CIFAS identity checks;

Satisfactory declaration of interest;

This role is subject to safer recruitment practices as it involves work with children and/ or vulnerable adults;

Satisfactory DBS check;

As a public authority, we must ensure that members of staff in public-facing roles are able to speak fluent English. This means that they must have a command of spoken English, with confidence and accuracy, sufficient for the effective performance of their role. This requirement does not refer to any particular English language qualifications, regional or international accents, dialects, speech impediments or the tone of conversations. It does not require staff to speak only in English.

How to Apply:

Interested candidates are invited to submit their applications online by pressing the 'Apply' button below. This includes a supporting statement that outlines to us how your skills and experience make you a good candidate for this vacancy.

We reserve the right to close this vacancy early if we receive sufficient applications for the role. Therefore, if you are interested, please submit your application as early as possible.

Equal Opportunity Employer:

Waltham Forest is a diverse borough where diversity is valued and is integral to both, service delivery and employment of its staff. The Council is proud of its rich mix of communities and as the largest employer in the area, it works hard to respond to the changing needs of its population. We use our statutory duties on race, gender and disability equality and best practice in respect of age, faith and sexual orientation to ensure equality of opportunity in the workplace. The Council is committed to meeting its 4 equality objectives: - Promoting equality of opportunity - Opposing all forms of discrimination, intolerance and disadvantage - Ensuring our workforce reflects the diverse communities of Waltham Forest at all levels. - Providing fair, appropriate, accessible and excellent Services to all. Respecting Diversity is a core Council value.

To support the above and reduce the risk of bias in its recruitment activities, the council is operating an anonymous shortlisting process, which hides personal information that can identify individuals until their application has been considered for shortlisting. The council also operates a scheme whereby, for jobs graded up to and including scale SO2, internal candidates are considered first. This includes those candidates who self-identify as having a disability for the purposes of the Disability Confident scheme. For more information, please refer to our recruitment and selection policy.

We are keen to support employees to balance their working life with other commitments. Therefore, wherever possible, we will consider working arrangements that suit an individual's personal circumstances whilst still meeting the needs of the Council. If you would like to discuss the possible flexible working options that might be applicable to this role, please contact the person named below or feel free to discuss this during your interview.

For more information on the benefits of working for the Council, please visit https://www.walthamforest.gov.uk/jobs-and-training/find-jobs-and-other-opportunities/working-us.

Contact Information:

If you have any questions about this vacancy or the application process, please contact :

Sue Monro (Lead Case Manager) sue.monro@walthamforest.gov.uk

Vikki Ridler (Family Help Lead for Schools) vikki.ridler@walthamforest.gov.uk

If you have any technical issues when trying to apply for this post, please contact our Recruitment Team via email at recruitment@walthamforest.gov.uk.

Click here for further information on the Human Resources recruitment privacy notice.