Name of Role / Independent Supporter – Kingston, Hounslow and Richmond
Responsible to / Independent Support Coordinator
Post Description / The Independent Support Partnership providesperson-centred support to young people and their families through the new social care, health & education reforms (SEND reforms).
Independent Supporters will provide accurate, timely support, advice and information to children, young people and their families who are either new to Statutory Services or who are transitioning from Statements to Education Health & Care Plans. This post involves supporting families one to one via meetings or home visits. The post will involve mainly working with families in Kingston and Hounslow and some work in Richmond.
Experience & Knowledge / Skills & Abilities
Essential
- Knowledge of legislation and recent policy changes that impact on families of children with additional needs and disabilities, in particular the SEND reforms and working with the Code of Practice.
- Experience of advice giving and managing a caseload with targets
- Experience of recording and evidencing outcomes
- Excellent administration skills and working knowledge of MS Word, Outlook, database entry and other applications
- Understanding of confidentiality, data protection issues and safeguarding issues
- Understanding of the social model of disability
- Experience of working with disabled people or vulnerable client groups
- Experience of advising, enabling and supporting young people and their families.
- Ability to identify and resolve problems
- Empathic approach
- Able to work independently as well as part of a team
- Report writing skills
- Action orientated and can-do approach
- Good time management and task prioritisation
- Excellent organisational skills
- Excellent communication skills both written and oral
- Task orientated and can-do approach
Other requirements
This post will be subject to a satisfactory Enhanced DBS check carried out by Richmond AID. You will need to be able to travel within the Hounslow, Kingston and Richmond boroughs.
Main Tasks and Duties
- To undertake one to one casework with clients in a person-centred way with each young person and their family to ensure that they have:
- Accurate and timely information,
- A good understanding of the process and what they can expect,
- Are aware of what needs to happen when,
- Know who is involved in the process and what their role is,
- Have their views and opinions at the centre of the decision making process,
- Have an Education Health and Care Plan that reflects their needs and aspirations.
- To provide accurate and up to date information to young people and their families in line with new legislations and local processes and procedures.
- To support and encourage young people to participate in school meetings and reviews, to be actively involved in outcome focused discussions and to help them to identify future aspirations and support needs.
- To liaise with the schools, the local authority, the voluntary sector and health and education professionals to ensure that all assessments and reports are gathered and put together in a timely manner with as little duplication as possible.
- To work alongside the existing Information Advice and Support Service (IAS) (formerly Parent Partnership Service) and other organisations providing advice, information and support to ensure parents and young people have access to the appropriate level of support to meet their individual needs and situation.
- To have an understanding of dispute resolution and complaints procedures and to support parents and young people to access informal support in resolving disagreements.
- To have an understanding of personal budgets within the context of an Education, Health and Care Plan.
- To work in partnership with Schools, the local authority and other partners to identify young people and the families who may benefit from the Independent Support Partnership including vulnerable and hard to reach groups.
- To keep accurate records of service activity, issues raised and agreed resolutions for reporting purposes and to inform the development of the service.
- To attend Council for Disabled Children (CDC) training programme.
- To provide advice and support through appointments, outreach sites and home visits.
- Keep accurate records of all clients and maintain a database of client information, continue to update client records with progress and outcomes.
- Complete all monitoring and evaluation as required by the funder and Richmond AID.
- To liaise and create effective working relationships with partner organisations.
- Ensure that the project is compliant with the Social Model of Disability
- Comply with Richmond AID’s policies and procedures
- Attend training and development as identified by you and your manager.
- Attend team meetings and supervision.
- You will need to travel within LBRuT as part of this post and occasionally may need to work outside of normal office hours including evening and weekends.
- Any other work commensurate with the level of this post.