Professional Practitioner

About the job

Key information

Permanent, 37 Hour position.

Flexible working available, using a hybrid model – working from home, where posible, and your contracted work base.

30 day’s annual leave (additional to bank holidays).

This role requires access to a vehicle with business insurance as some of your time will be spent in the community completing direct interventions with children, young people and families.

Please note that part of the role of Professional Practitioner is a supervisory role for our out of hours and weekend duty service. This requires rota’d shifts of ‘Lates’ (2pm -10pm) and ‘earlies’ (7am – 3pm) alternating every 6 weeks, including weekends

The Professional Practitioner is a key role within the Fostering Intervention Team (FIT), working to support children living in fostering and kinship homes by helping placements stay safe, stable, and nurturing. You will focus on delivering timely, evidence‑based support that safeguards children, meets their emotional needs, and improves outcomes. Working closely with children, carers, and partner agencies, you will promote a child‑centred approach that builds resilience, reduces risk, and supports positive, lasting change without creating dependency on services.

The role also provides leadership and guidance to Family Intervention Workers, ensuring high‑quality, consistent practice across the service. This includes supporting complex cases, contributing specialist knowledge, developing and delivering therapeutic programmes for children and young people, and influencing multi‑agency decision‑making. By supporting service development, including the Rapid Response out‑of‑hours offer, the Professional Practitioner helps ensure children and carers receive coordinated, skilled, and effective support when it matters most.

What will I be doing?

• Carry out high‑quality, child‑centred assessments of children, young people and families, identifying risks, vulnerabilities and strengths to ensure the right support at the right time.
• Deliver effective, evidence‑based interventions that improve safety, wellbeing and long‑term outcomes for children and young people.
• Maintain clear, timely and accurate records, reports and assessments to support multi‑agency decision‑making and safeguarding.
• Work closely with partner agencies to coordinate meaningful support for children with complex needs, promoting sustainable change and family resilience.
• Build strong, trusting professional relationships with children, families, carers and partner professionals, always keeping the child’s voice central.
• Support quality assurance activity, including audits and reviews, to continuously improve practice and service delivery.
• Share expertise and keep practice up to date through research, learning and training, acting as a subject lead for a specialist area where required.
• Support the development and delivery of specialist child and family programmes, ensuring staff are skilled and confident in their use.
• Provide supervision, guidance and leadership to Family Intervention Workers, promoting high‑quality, safe and consistent practice.
• Hold and support the most complex cases, acting as a role model for best practice and providing guidance to colleagues.
• Contribute to the delivery of a responsive out‑of‑hours service, including on‑call duties, to ensure children are supported when they need it most.

What kind of experience or qualifications do I need?

Essential

• Understanding of fostering and kinship care, with the ability to engage carers to meet diverse and complex needs of children
• Awareness of factors that contribute to foster placement breakdown and strategies to prevent disruption
• Strong knowledge of child development and confidence in undertaking direct work with children and young people
• Ability to work in partnership with children, young people, carers and professionals to assess needs and manage risk
• Knowledge of community and partner resources to support access to services
• Proven experience of working with families, foster carers and/or kinship carers within a multi‑agency context
• Experience supporting children and young people, including managing challenging behaviour and crisis situations
• Experience contributing to the planning, delivery and review of services for families and carers
• Experience of safeguarding practice and managing risk in line with policy and procedures
• Experience using ICT systems and electronic databases for accurate case recording
• Strong communication skills, with the ability to adapt communication styles for clarity and sensitivity
• Minimum of five GCSEs (A–C) or equivalent Level 3 qualification
• Relevant qualification in working with parents (or equivalent)
• Evidence of ongoing professional development

Desirable

• Experience supporting carers using trauma‑informed and therapeutic parenting approaches
• Background in youth work, education, residential care or a related field
• Experience contributing to multi‑agency meetings
• Training or experience in mediation
• Safeguarding and child protection training
• Relevant Level 4 qualification
• Training related to trauma, additional needs or supporting foster carers
• Further evidence of commitment to continued professional development

Supporting documents and information

Regretfully, we are unable to offer sponsorship for this role. We are only able to proceed with candidates who already have the right to work in the UK without the need for visa sponsorship

For an informal chat about the role, please contact: Helen Crowley, Team Leader at helen.crowley@somerset.gov.uk

Interviews are scheduled for 17/06/2026 at the Glastonbury Library Hub

A full job description will be provided to shortlisted candidates or on request.

Apply on the Somerset Council website