Job Description

Casual Play Workers – London Prisons

Job Title: / Casual Play Worker – London Prisons
Salary Range/Grade: / Living Wage
Hours & Work base: / Casual – As and when required
Reporting To: / Senior Family Support Worker
Work base: / London Prisons – Wandsworth, Brixton, Belmarsh & Isis, Feltham, Pentonville and Wormwood Scrubs Visitors’ Centres
Main Purpose of Job:
  • To provide age appropriate play activities within the Prison Visiting Service to ensure that children feel comfortable, safe and secure while visiting their parent in prison
  • To promote opportunities for children to engage with their mother/father who is in prison in an appropriate way during visit, family day or extended children’s visit
  • To ensure the play equipment is safe, clean and able to fulfil its requirements, storing and restocking as required

Performance Fundamentals:
Spurgeons has identified three performance fundamentals applicable to all roles in the organisation:
  • Providing Excellent Services
  • Managing Self and Others
  • Managing Resources
All job tasks and competencies are aligned with these performance fundamentals.
Performance Indicators and Targets:
  • Safeguarding incident reporting to timescale
  • Record all play sessions and any incidents requiring follow up to required quality
  • Risk assessments in place for all sessions
  • Achieve EYFS targeted ratings and Ofsted Inspection Safeguarding
  • Customer satisfaction is 85% or above
  • Delivery of service as set out in payment by results contract
  • 100% Health and Safety Accident reporting
  • Compliance with organisation audits and internal reporting requirements

Job Description
Providing Excellent Services
  1. To adhere to security policies ensuring the play sessions fully comply with prison requirements
  2. To lead play activities which promote a good understanding of child development for early years and school aged children.
  3. To lead on the play elements of Family Days in liaison with the Senior Family Support Worker and following the directive of the Play Strategy lead.
  4. To refer promptly any safeguarding concerns regarding a child in a session to Family Services Manager / Senior Family Support Worker, enabling follow up in visitors centre as appropriate for additional support. Record an accurate log on the concern.
Managing Self and Others
  1. To involve each child in activities and monitor both individual and group responses and shape programme accordingly
  2. To apply customer satisfaction methods in receiving feedback on the impact of service delivery
  3. To recognise when to refer individuals to other team members for specific support in relation to their request or circumstances
  4. To participate in supervision, appraisal, training and development and staff meetings as required
  5. To participate in the induction of new play staff, student placements and volunteers in conjunction with the Play Strategy Lead
Managing Resources
  1. To plan play activities with clear outcomes as set by the Play Strategy lead
  2. To organise casual play workers and volunteers in play session
  3. To assist the Family Services Manager / Senior Family Support Worker in arranging rota for play session cover by volunteers and casual play staff
  4. To ensure all equipment and materials are ready for play sessions and stored when not in use

Person Specification
Attainments / In order to be considered for this post you will have to demonstrate that you already have: / Criteria

Qualifications

/ General education to GCSE standard preferably including Maths and English Language grade C and above
NVQ II Childcare or equivalent in child development, play work or similar
Evidence of recent and ongoing professional development/training relevant to the post / E / D
D

Experience

/ Experience of working with children and families in stressful situations
Experience of supervising play sessions
Experience of working in team environment
Experience of working in an interagency setting
Experience of collating and maintaining monitoring information
Experience setting up a room for safe play
Working within secure, confidential and data protection boundaries / E
E
E
E
E
E
E

Work Based Knowledge

/ A working knowledge and demonstrable understanding of child protection and safeguarding issues, including Safeguarding and Child Protection policies, procedures and systems
An understanding of the needs of families affected by imprisonment
Awareness of Health & Safety practice in a play environment
A broad knowledge and understanding of:
Equal opportunity and diversity / E
E
E / D

Skills

/ Excellent interpersonal and communication skills – effective with a range of people
Excellent IT skills and ability to use Microsoft Office, Word, Excel, Publisher and Power Point
Ability to work in a prison setting and adhere fully to securing rules and regulations / E
E / E

Special Job

Circumstances

/ This post has the following special circumstances:
Regular travel within the designated service region
Flexible approach to hours and place of work (prison) due to need to ensure all visiting services meet contractual requirements and supporting the needs of colleagues and service users.
Appointment is subject to prison security clearance.
Note: If you have difficulty in meeting these conditions because of a disability or family circumstances, the Chair of panel will discuss it with you in order to consider reasonable adjustments to the job or working conditions. / E
E
E

Competencies (expected behaviours)

Within the main performance fundamentals Spurgeons identified ten core competencies that describe expected behaviours for which staff are required to work within, at the level of their role. For each post there are essential competencies that are key in ensuring the role is done effectively which are complemented by desirable competencies.

Please refer to Spurgeons Competency Framework for detailed descriptions.

Competencies / Level / Job Critical Competencies / Other Core Competencies
PROVIDING EXCELLENT SERVICES
Focusing on the Customer
To meet customers’ (service users and colleagues) needs and aims to continuously improve the services they provide to make sure customers receive an excellent service. / 2 / X
Safeguarding People
To ensure that all service users are appropriately safeguarded and that all staff are kept safe whilst working; safeguarding being always recognised as of paramount importance. / 2 / X
Delivering Outcomes
To ensure agreed outcomes are delivered in the most efficient and timely way by embracing a creative and entrepreneurial approach. / 2 / X
MANAGING SELF AND OTHERS
Providing Direction
Leading and providing direction to individuals, supporting and enabling them to make a positive contribution to the current purpose and future vision of the organisation. / 2 / X
Working as a Team
To work effectively with other people and use the diversity of the team to create a working environment which helps achieve the tasks. / 2 / X
Developing Self and Others
To behave ethically and professionally within your role, being aware of your own and other people’s strengths and weaknesses, and take steps to learn, develop and achieve high levels of performance in yourself and others. / 2 / X
Embracing Change
To embrace change effectively within services and departments through reflective, motivating and flexible leadership and team working. / 2 / X
Communication
To ensure the effective use of written and oral communication skills to convey information and ideas to individuals and teams within and outside the organisation and create opportunities for individuals to respond and provide feedback. / 2 / X
MANAGING RESOURCES
Making Evidence Based Decisions
To identify and use various sources of evidence, making meaning of it to understand how relevant and valid it is, to enable effective decision making that improves performance and delivers outcomes. / 2 / X
Planning and Managing Resources
To make sure the organisation delivers its key priorities, tasks and forecasts; effectively manage risks, relationships and use resources in efficient ways to deliver outcomes. / 2 / X

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