Family Intervention Worker – Reunification

About the job

Key information

• Permanent and full time (37 hours a week) – eight positions available within a brand new service!
• The opportunity to work flexibly in line with the demands of the role, working with children and families in their homes, from your contracted work base and occasionally from home.
• 28 days’ annual leave plus bank holidays.
• You will undertake intense pieces of individual work with children and parents/carers to support children returning from care to live with their families.

What will I be doing?

We’re working to improve the lives of children and families in Somerset – and as a Family Intervention Worker, you’ll be a key part of that. As a service, we have committed to having only the right children at the right time in our care. We want to support children who could safely return home to live with their families permanently.

As a result, we are excited to be setting up a Reunification Service to work alongside children’s social workers, with children’s families, to enable children who can be supported to go home to do so without delay.

We are looking to recruit eight Family Intervention Workers (Grade 12) to work within two teams – one on the West for children supported by Taunton and Sedgemoor, and one on the East for children supported by South Somerset and Mendip.

Your day-to-day work will involve:

• Intensive direct work with children and their parent/carer alongside another Family Intervention Worker, supported by an Advanced Practitioner, working towards reunification and helping this to be successful
• Delivering specific interventions (specialist training provided) to children and their parents/carers, depending on the need identified, and offering advice and support, such as parenting and behaviour support
• Supporting multi-agency teams around families, working alongside statutory and non-statutory partner agencies to ensure improved and sustainable outcomes for children and young people
• Contribute to regular reviews of progress and further needs which will inform further planning.

What kind of experience or qualifications do I need?

We offer ongoing support, training and guidance to help you be the best you can be. But it will really help if you have:

• experience of working with or knowledge of Children Looked After and Care Leavers
• an understanding of the skills required to engage, assess and plan to support the needs of children, young people and their families
• an understanding or experience in multi-agency working to safeguard children and young people
• the ability to work as part of a team as well as being able to work autonomously
• organisational skills to ensure that interventions, reviews and plans are completed within timescales
• excellent communication skills, attention to detail and a broad range of IT skills with a minimum of GCSE Grade C/Level 4 (or equivalent) in Maths and English.

We’re proud to be here for the people of Somerset. And that means everyone in Somerset. An important part of this is ensuring that we are as diverse and inclusive as the people and communities we serve.

We welcome applications from a diverse range of backgrounds and experiences to enrich our team. You can always contact the hiring manager for a chat if there’s anything you want to talk about before you apply.

What is in it for me?

We are proud to offer an environment that is supportive and rewarding, working as part of a team who are passionate about the work they do to improve the lives of people in Somerset.

We offer great training and development opportunities, with supportive management. As well as this, we have some fantastic employee benefits available:

• We promote a healthy work-life balance and offer flexible working arrangements wherever possible, including working from home.
• Generous annual leave allowance, with the opportunity to purchase additional leave
• Staff discounts in gyms.
• Employee Assistance for the times you may need some support and a variety of employee wellbeing services.
• Auto enrolment onto our generous Pension Scheme and optional pension enhancement through our Additional Voluntary Contribution scheme.
• A Flexible Benefits Scheme via salary sacrifice to obtain a cycle for work and health screenings.
• My Staff Shop offering discounts in shops, online shopping, restaurants, cinema tickets, insurance benefits and more

DBS check

This post requires a criminal background check via the Disclosure procedure.

Supporting documents and information

The salary range for this role is £28,298 to £32,061 per annum.

You will need to be able and willing to travel, including travel outside standard work hours and to areas that are not currently serviced by public transport.

For an informal chat about the role, you can contact:

Cathy Attfield, 07867 142823, catherine.attfield@somerset.gov.uk, or Rebecca Clark, 07977 412346, rebecca.clark1@somerset.gov.uk.

When completing your application/CV please provide your full employment history and ensure that any gaps in employment are explained. Please start with your current or most recent employment.

Interviews may take place ahead of the closing date as we anticipate considerable interest in these positions.

If you have all the information you need, just hit the apply button – we can’t wait to hear from you.

A bit more about Somerset Council

We’re a hugely ambitious council, committed to improving lives for the residents, communities and businesses of Somerset.

And that’s why we’re working so hard to build a sustainable organisation with a culture that rewards, values and recognises our staff, and gives everyone here the opportunity to grow and develop, personally and professionally.

Apply on the Somerset Council website

Apply now