Starlings (Colleton) Childrens Centre, The Colleton School, Colleton Drive (Hybrid)
Contract, Flexible hours
Enhanced DBS check required
£29,269 - £33,024 Pro Rata Per Annum - (Pay award pending)
some work outside of office hours is required on a flexible basis to meet the needs of families
An exciting opportunity is now available within Wokingham Borough Council's Integrated Early Help Service as we look to recruit an Early Help Worker to work within our busy team on a fixed-term basis.
As an Early Help Worker, you will be responsible for promoting and safeguarding the welfare of children aged 0 to 18 years. You will manage a defined caseload and work with children, young people and their families to reduce risks associated with poor outcomes for children, including pre-birth. As a lead professional you will complete 'whole family' Early Help Assessments to gain an understanding of the children and family’s needs and develop a time-limited action plan to help the family achieve identified outcomes. This includes ensuring that the voices of children and young people are heard, and modelling positive parenting and co-parenting.
You will work closely with other support services including Children's Social Care, Schools, Early Years, Health and Domestic Abuse services to coordinate wrap around, strength-based support for families. You will take a lead professional role in organising and chairing 'Team Around the Family' meetings to ensure that plans are effective and families are making progress with healthy change and increased resilience.
You will have a good understanding of risk factors associated with poor outcomes for children and young people. You will be able to demonstrate an inclusive, systemic approach to your work to ensure that the service you deliver is welcoming, professional and accessible, including to ethnic minority groups, fathers and male carers, families with complex needs who may be open to Children's Social Care, children and young people who may be experiencing harm outside of the family home or network and families with physical and mental health issues.
You will support children and families through group work, when needed, and work closely with your team to maintain operational services, including health & safety policies and procedures.
Hybrid Working - This is a hybrid position working from our offices as well as attending meetings/visiting families as and when required.
Candidate Requirements
- Experience of working with children (0 to 18 years) and families.
- Experience of managing a caseload of families with complex needs.
- Excellent communication skills, be creative, resilient and adaptable to change.
- Essential to the work is a personal robustness to be able to cope with the demands of the role and an ethos of partnership and collaboration.
- Daily use of a car and full driving licence is also essential for this post.
Benefits - We can offer a fantastic range of benefits including a generous annual leave entitlement, a local government pension scheme, employee assistance programme, discounts and much more!
Please be aware that we will be reviewing the applications we receive on a daily basis, and we reserve the right to close the advert early if suitable candidates are identified.
Whilst this is a fixed term contract appointment, for anyone already employed by Wokingham Borough Council this would be classed as a secondment if successful. Therefore, the usual permission requests for secondments apply and you must speak to your line manager in the first instance before applying.
If your application is shortlisted for an interview, you will be required to provide proof of your right to work in the UK at that stage. Additionally, successful candidates must present proof upon receiving a job offer.
Please note that all offers are conditional and subject to the satisfactory completion of pre-employment checks.
Wokingham Borough Council is committed to safeguarding and promoting the welfare of children and vulnerable adults and expects all staff, other workers and volunteers to share this commitment. All successful candidates for this role will be subject to Disclosure & Barring Service (DBS) checks along with other relevant employment checks.
Wokingham is an equal opportunities employer.
.Candidate_briefing_note.pdf
Competency_Framework.pdf
Early_Help_Worker_JD_712573.pdf