Adolescent Family Counsellor – Full Time
Centre 360 Youth and Family Service
Closing date: Monday October 30th 2017
· Centre 360 Youth and Family Service (formerly the Come In Youth Resource Centre) is looking for a passionate counsellor to join our team.
· We offer flexible working conditions and salary packaging.
· Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples are encouraged to apply.
Centre 360 Youth and Family Service is looking for an adolescent and family counsellor to join our growing family counselling team. The role involves counselling vulnerable young people and their families, running or co-facilitating client programs, and contributing to the effective functioning of the Centre (a full position description is attached). Reflective practice and supervision are important to our work, so you will also be participating in professional development activities in these areas.
At Centre 360, you’ll be working with a group of passionate adolescent and family counsellors, who believe in the value and potential of all young people. We’re committed to delivering high-quality therapeutic services to young people and their families and value systemic, strengths-based, trauma-informed, and evidence-based approaches to practice. The Centre values flexible and creative ways of working with young people and their families, including outreach. We also emphasise the importance of therapeutic engagement and cultural competence in our work, and believe in the therapeutic relationship as a vehicle for change.
The Centre places great value on its staff. We cultivate a safe, just, and engaging workplace where professionals can do their best work and grow their skills and knowledge. We’re also committed to fostering the wellbeing of all team members and offer flexible working hours to support work/life balance.
We believe in social justice and ensure our practices are inclusive of diverse cultures, genders, sexualities, family structures, and belief systems. Moreover, we believe that diversity enriches our work and actively build a team with diverse skill sets, backgrounds, and approaches.
More about Centre 360 Youth and Family Service
Centre 360 Youth and Family Service (the Centre) is a community-based adolescent counselling and support service at Paddington, operating since 1978, and is part of St Francis Social Services. We provide individual and family counselling, advocacy, practical assistance, group work, and mentoring programs to highly disadvantaged young people aged 12-24 years and their families who either reside in or move through the inner city of Sydney and South-Eastern Sydney.
The Centre commonly works in the areas of trauma and loss, adolescent mental health, family difficulties and breakdown, family violence, substance abuse, homelessness, and juvenile and young adult offending. We work to strengthen young people’s connection to their families and communities, enhance their well-being and resilience, and to help them achieve positive life outcomes such as good physical and mental health, healthy relationship skills, strong support networks, stable housing, employment, education, and training. The Centre operates a number of integrated projects:
· Adolescent and Family counselling and support: Individual counselling, family therapy, parenting programs and case management, with a focus on early intervention. We use a trauma informed and strengths based approach to our work with all our clients. We also draw on several other therapeutic frameworks, depending on the needs of the individual client and skills of the counsellor, including Attachment Theory, Narrative Therapy, CBT, Mindfulness, Psychodynamic theory, and Family Systemic Therapy.
· Group Based Programs: a range of therapeutic and psycho-educational groups for adolescents and Triple P and Circle of Security for parents. Existing groups are facilitated with a range of external providers, including educational institutions and residential services.
· Mentoring Programs:
o TeamUp: A social and wellbeing mentoring Program for disadvantaged young people aged 15-21
o Herbert Smith Freehills (HSF) partnership: Young people are partnered with employees from the HSF law firm for group social and recreational mentoring activities. They also receive a scholarship to put towards their education.
We often combine counselling with casework, enabling our team to assist young people and their families with their internal needs (mental health) at the same time as improving their relationships in their external world (family, school and community.) We also create a safe, supportive environment or go to places young people and families feel safe, to remove barriers that may prevent young people from attending therapeutic sessions.
Selection Criteria
Essential Criteria
· Tertiary qualifications in social work, psychology, counselling, family therapy, or other related discipline.
· Experience providing counselling to young people and/or families and a passion for working with young people. This includes an ability to work with both parents/carers and young people in counselling, or a willingness to learn and work in this way.
· Understanding of the issues faced by at risk and marginalised young people and their families/care-givers, and a demonstrated ability to engage and work effectively with this client group.
· Demonstrated ability to use a range of active engagement strategies with vulnerable and at risk children, young people and their families, and be flexible and creative in meeting their needs.
· Demonstrated experience in, or ability to run, therapeutic or psycho-educational groups.
Desirable Criteria
· Experience working flexibly with clients and families, including outreach.
· Ability to plan and run programs.
Successful applicants must have a full drivers licence and undergo a Working With Children Check and Police check.
How to Apply
We look forward to receiving your application. Please provide:
· A completed cover sheet
· Your CV
· A letter (maximum 3 pages) responding to the selection criteria. Please use the criteria as headings and explain how your skills and experience meet each essential criteria, and the group of desirable criteria.
Applications will close on the 30th of October.
Contact Person: Jodie Kidd - Executive Manager, Centre 360 Youth and Family Service
p: 9331 2691
e:
Role Description:
Adolescent and Family Counsellor
Purpose: / · To provide flexible and family-inclusive casework and/or a range of counselling interventions to young people, to help them reach their goals and improve their wellbeing.· To contribute to the effective and cohesive running of the Centre.
Client Group / The Centre works with a range of vulnerable young people, including young people who have experienced; trauma and loss, abuse and neglect, family dysfunction and breakdown, mental health issues, substance abuse, bullying or victimisation, school issues, homelessness, and juvenile and young adult offending.
Responsible to: / · Clients
· Supervisor
Pay Scale or Award: / SCHADS Award, level 5
Program Location: / Centre 360 Youth and Family Service, Paddington
Organisational Context
Centre 360 Youth and Family Service is a project of St Francis Social Services (SFSS). Our SFSS vision, purpose, and values are:
Vision: / Our vision is for a society in which there is full recognition of the dignity, equality, human rights, and humanity of all people.Purpose: / To uphold the intrinsic dignity of each person, by providing support and advocacy to empower the most disadvantaged and marginalised within our community.
Values: / Welcome
Respect
Connect
Empower
Centre 360 Youth and Family Service (the Centre) is a community-based adolescent counselling and support service in Paddington. The Centre has been operating in various capacities since 1978, offering support to highly disadvantaged young people aged 12-24 years and their families, who either reside in or move through the inner city of Sydney, Eastern Sydney, and the Eastern Beaches. We currently provide individual and family counselling, advocacy, practical assistance, educational and therapeutic group work, and mentoring programs.
We work flexibly and creatively to enhance young people’s connection to their families and communities, increase their wellbeing, and to help them achieve positive life outcomes such as good physical and mental health, healthy relationship skills, strong support networks, stable housing, employment, education, and training. We commonly work in the areas of trauma and loss, adolescent mental health, the emotional difficulties associated with family dysfunction and breakdown, substance abuse, homelessness, and juvenile and young adult offending.
Key Responsibility Areas
Client support /Therapeutic support / · Build positive, effective working relationships with diverse young people and their families.
· Undertake comprehensive initial assessment and ongoing assessments of client needs.
· Provide high quality therapeutic interventions to young people in the context of their families, which may include;
- individual counselling
- family inclusive counselling or family therapy
- educational and therapeutic group work.
· Work flexibly and creatively to support young peoples’ positive adolescent development in the context of their families, including conducting outreach.
· Provide client-led, therapeutic case work and/or management for clients where appropriate; for example, advocacy with other services, skill building activities (e.g., budgeting), writing support letters and court reports, and practical assistance, such as transport to appointments.
· Use evidence-based and best-practice approaches to work with clients.
· Respond appropriately to risks of harm that present for young people and their families; including child protection and immediate mental health risks, as well as diffusion of strong negative emotions.
· Develop supported transition plans for clients leaving the service.
· Seek feedback from young people and families and monitor outcomes achieved with clients.
· Consult with other clinicians and supervisor to access clinical support where needed, including escalating issues to supervisor or manager.
Collaboration, Networking, and Advocacy / · Establish and maintain respectful, professional, and productive working relationships with internal and external stakeholders.
· Liaise with team members and external services to meet client needs and goals – including consultation, coordinating support, and referring.
· Advocate for clients and young people with other services and within youth networks and other forums.
· Participate in external meetings and working groups where appropriate.
· Develop good knowledge of local services for young people, to effectively meet their needs and build partnerships.
Supporting the Team and Service / · Actively support and promote a positive team environment, where all staff are valued and respected.
· Contribute to making the team and service effective through involvement in projects, contributing in team forums, and participating in policy and procedure development and review.
· Contribute to achieving St Francis Social Service’s purpose and vision, and uphold the values of the organisation.
· Collect and enter accurate, timely data to inform service planning and evaluation.
· Contribute to intake by responding to referrals and assessing their suitability for the service.
· Support team members develop their skills and knowledge and enhance their clinical practice through consultation, participation in professional learning activities, and participation in peer review.
· Maintain ongoing communication with your line manager, including providing feedback about your work, the service, and management.
Professional Development / · Actively participate in regular clinical supervision for the purposes of case review, clinical support, and professional development.
· Engage with ongoing professional development activities to enhance competence and skills, including peer supervision, training, seminars and other forums, and annual appraisals.
· Develop a professional development plan through appraisals and supervision.
· Maintain up-to-date knowledge of service and sector changes, and counselling practice.
· Participate in mandatory learning and development programs offered through the Centre.
Administration and Accountability / · Keep up-to-date, accurate records of the work done with and for clients, in line with agency policies and procedures.
· Adhere to site policies and procedures – particularly legislative requirements such as WHS, privacy and confidentiality, and mandatory reporting.
· Complete a range of administration tasks to support case work and other service activities (e.g., petty cash spending processes, referral and intake data entry)
Legal and Other Requirements
· Current driver’s licence· Satisfactory criminal record check
· Current Working with Children Check