Senior Family Support Worker

Job Description

Senior Family Support Worker

Job Title: / Senior Family Support Worker
Salary Range/Grade: / Spinal Points 28 -33
Salary £24,472 rising to £28,746 per annum
Training Band: / 4
Hours: / 37
Work base: / Longfield Children’s Centre (West Wiltshire)
Reporting To: / CSL
Responsible for: / Family Support Service
Main Purpose of Job:

To lead and manage the Family Support Worker team within allocated Children’s Centre(s) within a Children’s Centre Cluster Group to provide targeted support to vulnerable and complex families through the development of effective partnership working with parents and families and multi-agency partners to sustain positive outcomes for the child/children, with a commitment to safeguarding and promoting the welfare of children.
To be the lead Family Support team member in working with families and other agencies to co-ordinate the initial assessments, the required provision and/or co-ordination of interventions to meet identified support needs of families with early year’s children in both their home on a one to one basis and within the children centre setting.
To manage Children’s Centre CAF processes and be the recognised Designated Safeguarding Person for the service
To facilitate and deliver support and interventions which improve parental capacity and family relationships for families with early years children.
To participate in the wider Children’s Centre service with a particular emphasis on targeted vulnerable families to engage actively with the service.

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:

Meet quota of cases for family support referrals and cases(recognises complexity of caseload)
Safeguarding incident reporting to timescale
Record all group sessions and any incidents requiring follow up
Ofsted Inspection Safeguarding is Good
Customer satisfaction is good
Quality professional practice for assessment, intervention and review
Case recording for all team meets audit requirements
Outcomes Based Accountability reporting to timescale/Identifies positive outcomes for families

Job Description
Providing Excellent Services

To receive and assess suitability of referrals from multi-agency partners for families requiring Children’s Centre early intervention targeted support, and allocate/co-ordinate the caseload within the Family Support team (including taking on own case load) to ensure timely initial assessments, and the required provision/co-ordination of interventions to be taken up which meets the identified support needs of the families with early years children in both their home on a one to one basis and within the children centre setting in order to promote well being and improve outcomes.

To take responsibility for the Health and Safety requirements of the Family Support team, especially in relation to ensuring full adherence to Spurgeons Lone Working policy and ensuring risk assessments are utilised for all referrals when undertaking community outreach visits.

To ensure that the policies, procedures and practice for safeguarding and promoting the welfare of children are implemented effectively within Spurgeons and relevant Local Safeguarding Children Board policies and procedures.

To work with CAF processes where required and as part of a Team Around the Child and in some situations fulfilling the roles of Lead Professional in the CAF.

To lead the development and use a range of innovative approaches to effectively engage with and develop services for families, especially those who are hard to reach, complementing the Children’s Centre vision for best outcomes for 0-5 year children and their parents /carers.

To work with families and other agencies to develop and co-ordinate the delivery of a shared support plan.

To refer families to specialist and other services when appropriate and with consent in accordance with required protocols and monitor family progress and engagement with referred services.

To agree, facilitate and/or deliver support programmes to identified families within the children’s centres for additional support.

To work flexibly and deliver services across the Spurgeons Children’s Centres as directed.

Managing Self and Others

To manage the Children’s Centre Family Support programme in sustaining positive outcomes for early years children and their families through leading and supervising the Family Support Workers through the development of productive working relationships with your direct reports, colleagues and multi-agency partners and the implementation of one to one support and group programmes with identified outcomes.

To line manage and build the Family Support Worker team through the provision of support and supervision, annual appraisals and implementation of the Personal Development Plan, providing support to team members to develop and maintain their performance and addressing issues affecting performance, following HR processes if required.

To support the Family Support Worker team in developing and maintaining skills, knowledge and competence to ensure quality and sustained family support intervention and ethical practice through provision of reflective practice supervision and be accountable for and review own practice using supervision and other opportunities for professional development.

To provide support as required to colleagues (internally and partner agencies) to ensure Children’s Centre targets are achieved, including the induction of new staff, student placements and volunteers in conjunction with the Children’s Services Leader / Children’s Services Manager’s requests.

Managing Resources

To work with the Family Support team to ensure quality audits and inspections are prepared for and participated in as required to ensure the expected service deliverables are achieved (eg. Ofsted inspections, Safeguarding Audits).

To monitor customer satisfaction feedback and compile Outcomes Based Accountability report cards for the Family Support team service delivery and implement the complaints policy as required.

To monitor for the Family Support team and follow in own caseload, contractually agreed case management procedures, including recording and reporting, involving other agencies, colleagues and line managers where appropriate.

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

Qualifications

/ Social Work Qualification or NVQ 3 in Childcare, Health, Social Care with experience of managing complex casework to tier 3 and 4
NVQ 4 in Childcare, Health, Social Care
Degree/NPQICLor equivalent level qualification
Evidence of recent and continuing professional development in your professional field and its relevance to the post’s requirements. / E
E / D
D

Experience

/ Experience of managing staff team
Evidence of professional experience of quality engagement in early intervention family support with vulnerable families
Experience of initial assessments, home visits group sessions facilitation
Experience in running family support programmes and parenting courses
Experience in identifying innovative ways to engage with hard to reach families
Experience of working in team environment
Experience of working in an multi-agency team and interagency setting
Working knowledge of CAF process and experience of assessing the needs of vulnerable families and the role of a lead professional
Experience of collating and maintaining qualitycase files & monitoring information
Experience of understanding and maintaining professional boundaries with service users
Working within confidential and data protection boundaries
Experience of using data bases for recording, maintaining monitoring and retrieving information. / E
E
E
E
E
E
E
E
E
E
E
E

Work Based Knowledge

/ A working knowledge and demonstrable understanding of:
Knowledge of Child Development and the impact on children from issues such as domestic violence, substance misuse and parental mental health
The Children Acts of 1989 and 2004 and United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child
Child protection and safeguarding issues, including Safeguarding and Child Protection policies, procedures and systems
An Outcomes based approach to measuring performance and its application in services for children.
Awareness of Health & Safety practice in Family Support work (eg. Lone Working best practice)
The Data Protection act in relation to working with Children families and multi-agency working.
Equal opportunity and diversity in assessing and responding to the needs of children and families / E
E
E
E
E / D
D

Skills

/ Demonstrates ability to challenge appropriately, especially in reflective practice supervision
Proficient IT skills in database, word processing, powerpoint, and email. Spurgeons uses Microsoft Office applications
Excellent interpersonal and communication skills – effective in a variety of settings and range of people.
Effective persuading, communicating and interpersonal skills to gain commitment, confidence and compliance.
Demonstrates an excellent customer service approach
Demonstrably accurate, methodical and neat in ways of working
Proficient time management skills
Skills in collating and sharing data / E
E
E
E
E
E
E
E

Special Job

Circumstances

/ This post has the following special circumstances:
A car driver and access to a car for work purposes
Regular travel within the Children’s Centre areas
Occasional national and regional travel
Flexible approach to hours due to possible travel and supporting the needs of colleagues and service users. This includes occasional weekend and evening work
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
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 eachpost 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. / 4 / 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. / 4 / X
Delivering Outcomes
To ensure agreed outcomes are delivered in the most efficient and timely way by embracing a creative and entrepreneurial approach. / 4 / 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. / 4 / 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. / 4 / 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. / 4 / X
Embracing Change
To embrace change effectively within services and departments through reflective, motivating and flexible leadership and team working. / 3 / 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. / 4 / 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. / 4 / X / 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. / 3 / X

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