Job Description

Job Title: / Young Carers Support Worker
Salary Range/Grade: / Grade J Spinal Points 22-27
£20,660 - £22,658 rising to £24,174 per annum pro rata
(salary based on a 37 hour working week)
Hours: / 18.5 hours per week
2 Set evenings per month required (Tuesday and Thursday )
Training Band / 2
Work base: / Office/Community Based
Reporting To: / Children’s Services Lead
Responsible for: / N/A
Main Purpose of Job:
·  To develop and maintain effective partnership working with young carers, their parents and other agencies with a commitment to safeguarding and promoting the welfare of children and working to assess, provide or co-ordinate support to young carers experiencing complex and multiple issues.
·  To facilitate and deliver support and interventions which improve the young carers personal, social and educational development .
·  To promote equality and the interests and welfare of young carers, achieving improved outcomes for the young carers and their families.
·  To maintain competent and ethical practice in the provision of the young carers service, supporting families experiencing complex and multiple issues.
Performance Standards:
Spurgeons has identified three main 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:
·  Engage effectively with as many young carers as possible within the area of responsibility
·  Achieve agreed outcomes with young carers
·  Safeguarding incident reporting to timescale
·  Record all group sessions and any incidents requiring follow up to required quality and timebound
·  Customer satisfaction is good.
·  Case recording of referrals to required quality and timebound completion
·  Follow programme and ensure delivery successful with local services across Dudley
·  To adhere to Spurgeons vision and mission and to demonstrate Spurgeon’s core values of compassion. Inclusivity and hopefulness in performing the essential duties and responsibilities of your job.
Job Description
Providing Excellent Services
1.  To understand and engage with young carers, through effective communication and developing a rapport with the young carers, assisting them in expressing and realising their goals and working within safeguarding policies and procedures with other agencies and parents as appropriate.
2.  To work with young carers and their families to identify priorities, support needs, interventions and goals, developing and implementing strategies for securing these, using assessment and monitoring to motivate young carers and their families to achieve a shared and mutually agreed support plan/ contract.
3.  To take up referrals and work with young carers in order to identify, understand and meet their needs, with an emphasis on promoting positive outcomes.
4.  To work with young carers in line with the agreed model, ensuring that the level of support meets the identified need including one to one support, group support, telephone support, advocacy, provision of information, signposting, training opportunities and workshops.
5.  To provide one to one, time limited support for young carers where; following assessment there are high levels of unmet need, where a multi agency response is required or where there are excessive or harmful levels of caring responsibility. This support will be focussed on holistic family action planning to support measurable progress and clear outcomes encouraging families to problem solve and work towards their own resolutions.
6.  To work with young carers and other agencies to assess and regularly review the families’ inter-related strengths, resources, needs and risks using a ‘whole family’ approach. This includes using a range of assessment tools to gather information and sharing the whole family assessment and recommendations with appropriate family members and the multi-agency team at an assessment review meeting.
7.  To work with young carers to develop a programme of training sessions/workshops to develop their confidence, skills, enhance their future development and be active citizens.
8.  To promote young carers self awareness, confidence and participation through facilitating exploration of their values and beliefs, encouraging their involvement in the design of their young carers service and supporting them in evaluating the impact of the service upon their own situation.
9.  To provided targeted outreach and awareness raising activities to other agencies to support the increased identification of young carers including presentations, workshops and events.
10.  To pro-actively work in partnership with other agencies including educational settings and adult services to provide ongoing support to young carers, particularly at points of transition and to enable young carers to continue their education, employment or training.
11.  To work in partnership with young carers to develop ‘ambassadors’ who will communicate messages and resources to their peers to encourage self-identification.
12.  To work with young carers in promoting their rights and ensuring those rights are upheld.
13.  To support the development and facilitation of young carers networks and forums to ensure that the voice of young carers is heard and that they are in a position to be able to shape and influence the service.
14.  To thoroughly ensure that the policies, procedures and practice for safeguarding and promoting the welfare of children and young people are implemented effectively within Spurgeons and relevant Local Safeguarding Children Board policies and procedures.
15.  To promote equality and the valuing of diversity within the young carers service through a culture and the application of systems that promote equality, value diversity and challenges oppressive behaviour in young people as may arise.
16.  To fulfil the legal, regulatory and ethical requirements relevant to the young carers service, ensuring activities have full compliance with legal, regulatory and ethical requirements.
17.  To work flexibly and deliver services across Spurgeons Children’s Services as directed.
Managing Self and Others
18.  To encourage volunteers to work within the service and work in partnership with them in order to utilise the skills, knowledge and experiences they have to offer.
19.  Be accountable for and review own practice through working as an effective and reflective practitioner, participating in regular supervision and accessing opportunities for professional development.
20.  To ensure your own actions reduce risks to health and safety, through the following of lone working policy and guidelines and ensuring health and safety requirements are met in your area of responsibility (eg. risk assessments in place and followed service activities).
21.  To provide support as required to colleagues (internally and partner agencies) to ensure service targets are achieved, including the induction of new staff, student placements and volunteers in conjunction with your line manager’s requests.
Managing Resources
22.  In consultation with young carers and in line with the budget, develop and facilitate a relevant and engaging short breaks programme to develop peer support, enhance friendships, share experiences and allow time for families to spend time on their own.
23.  Follow contractually agreed case management procedures, including recording and reporting, involving other agencies, colleagues and line managers where appropriate.
24.  To monitor and evaluate the quality of the young carers service activities and the effectiveness of the contribution of volunteers through contractual monitoring systems and Spurgeons performance management systems (Chyms, Outcomes Based Accountability).
Person Specification
Attainments / In order to be considered for this post you will have to demonstrate that you already have: / Criteria

Qualifications

/ NVQ level 3 qualification in Child Care, Health, Social Care or Youth and Community
Evidence of recent and continuing professional development in relation to child development, family support and youth work / E
E

Experience

/ Professional experience of engaging with and supporting vulnerable children and young people
Experience of facilitating group sessions
Experience in running targeted programmes for children and young people
Practical experience in identifying innovative ways to engage with hard to reach children, young people and their families
Experience of working in within a multi-agency team, interagency settings and the CAF/TAC process
Experience of using data bases for recording, maintaining monitoring and retrieving information. / E
E
E
E
E / D

Work Based Knowledge

/ A working knowledge and demonstrable understanding of:
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
Knowledge of young carers and the impact on them from issues such as substance misuse, parental mental health and ill health
An Outcomes based approach to measuring performance and its application in services for young people
Lone Working best practice.
The Data Protection act in relation to working with children and young people and multi-agency working.
Equal opportunity and diversity in assessing and responding to the needs of young carers and their families / E
E
E
E / D
D
D

Skills

/ Proficient in Microsoft Word and Outlook
Excellent interpersonal and communication skills – effective in a variety of settings and range of people.
Effective team working skills
Effective persuading, communicating and interpersonal skills to gain commitment, confidence and compliance.
Responsive to direction and challenge.
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 / D
D

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 service area
Requires lone working within Spurgeons policies and procedures
Occasional national and regional travel
Flexible approach to hours due to regular weekend and evening work and occasional travel and requirements to support the needs of colleagues and service users.
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 / D

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.

COMPETENCY / LEVEL / CRITICAL COMPETENCY / GENERAL COMPETENCY
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. / 3 / 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. / 3 / X
Delivering Outcomes
To ensure agreed outcomes are delivered in the most efficient and timely way by embracing a creative and entrepreneurial approach. / 3 / 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. / 3 / X
Working as a Team – Level 5
To work effectively with other people and use the diversity of the team to create a working environment which helps achieve the tasks. / 3 / 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. / 3 / 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. / 3 / 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. / 3 / 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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