Family Keyworker Croydon, England
Job description
Job title: Family Keyworker (Family Support) - Early Help Family Solutions
Department: Children’s Services
Location: Croydon Council (CR0)
Grade / Salary: Grade 8; £35,217 - £37,038 pro rata
Hours of work: 36 per week / Monday – Friday
Contract type: 12 months fixed term contract/secondment
“Are you passionate about improving the lives of children and families? Are you a skilled professional who puts children at the heart of your practice?”
An exciting opportunity has arisen to join Croydon’s Early Help Family Solutions, as a keyworker within our three locality based teams. This is a full time post offer.
The Family Solutions Service delivers intensive Early Help Key work input over a 6 month period. This service aims to assist families in recognising and accessing relevant support networks which will enable them to enjoy and achieve a good standard of family life and wellbeing without the need for input from Children’s Social Care.
Working within a supportive management structure, you will be responsible for the delivery of ‘whole family’ assessments and interventions using a ‘Team Around the Family’ framework. Through the use of regular review and management oversight, you will support the progression and achievement of ‘outcomes based’ family plans. Your work will be highly collaborative in nature, relational in approach and heavily influenced by principles of systemic practice.
The service maintains commitment to the delivery of high quality support through intensive partnership working with families and universal provisions. As a keyworker, you will navigate and broker families’ access to a range of community services including health, education and third sector provisions.
Keyworkers work closely alongside locality management, to achieve the delivery of high quality support for families. You will receive regular case supervision to support and guide the progression of your work with families. In addition, you will benefit from exposure to peer input and influences through your engagement in ‘mixed locality’ reflective discussion groups held on a monthly basis.
As a service, we are continually seeking to develop our offer and input to children, young people and their families. We will support you to identify and access opportunities which promote your continuous professional development and enable you to engage with a wide breadth knowledge and learning.
Benefits of Working With Us
- Investment into your staff well-being
- Good management support for keyworkers, regular supervision, and access to a clinical therapist to support your work.
- A range of CPD opportunities to support your development.
- 29 days’ annual leave in addition to Bank Holidays
- A pension scheme with an average employer contribution of 20%
Why Join Us
- Our teams consists of experienced keyworkers and Social Workers at various levels
- The team arrange meetings regularly to ensure all colleagues have the support required to fulfil their duties
- The ethos at Croydon is very much about working together to make positive change
- You will join an established team who can help you settle in and offer their expertise
- You will have the support of an extremely knowledgeable and understanding manager
About You
You will be a skilled, experienced and child-focussed practitioner, with a background of relationship based work with children, young people and their families. You will be a confident practitioner, with broad understanding of child development. You will be able to tailor your knowledge to work with families across a wide age range, including expectant parents, early years, secondary transitions, adolescents and preparation for adulthood.
You will be proficient in the undertaking of assessments and able to apply ‘whole family approach’ to the identification and understanding of need. We are looking for individuals who are skilled in the building and sustaining of relationships and able to engage families who may be hesitant or reluctant to work with the service.
The work carries aspects of risk management due to the complex and often challenging nature of familial circumstances. As a key work practitioner you will liaise closely with families, management and wider services to identify potential risks and devise relevant ‘safety plans’ where appropriate to do so. You will carry a mixed caseload of approximately 25 children and manage your work in accordance with Early Help practice standards. Candidates must therefore possess good skills of time management, whilst demonstrating an ability to prioritise the progression of key work tasks. The work itself can be highly rewarding, but also requires a level of responsiveness at times. Applicants with an ability to ‘flex’ and tailor their approach to given scenarios will be welcomed.
To be considered for the post, it is essential that you have a proven record of building relationships, responding to crisis and delivering outcomes. It is a pre-requisite that you possess experience in family and/or adolescent work.
Recruitment and Selection Timeline
The closing date for applications is 23:59 on 12th March 2023
Shortlisting will take place week commencing 13th March 2023
Interviews will take place week commencing 20th March 2023
Note for internal applicants
If you are an existing employee of the council this opportunity would only be open to you on a secondment basis and you must have your current manager’s approval prior to submitting an application.
Equal opportunities
Croydon Council is an inclusive employer and welcomes applications from all sections of the community. Subject to business needs, we will be pleased to consider applications from candidates seeking flexible working arrangements and support hybrid working, whereby staff attend the workplace for part of their working week and work from home, or elsewhere, remotely for the rest of the time.
As users of the disability confident scheme, we guarantee to interview all disabled applicants who meet the minimum criteria for the advertised role.
Croydon council is committed to safeguarding and promoting the welfare of children and vulnerable adults and expects all staff to share this commitment. The Successful candidate will be subject to an Enhanced Children’s DBS check.
