Family Key Worker

Hours per week:37 hours

Interview date:To be confirmed following shortlisting

Support and Safeguarding Service - Empowering Families, Protecting Futures

Join our Support and Safeguarding Service as a Family Key Worker and be a pivotal support for our most vulnerable children in Wiltshire.

Main duties of the job We're dedicated to redefining young futures by working collaboratively with our partners to offer high-quality, efficient, and effective support services. As a Family Key Worker, you'll form strong connections with children, young people, parents, and carers to understand the challenges they face. Through appropriate interventions and direct work, you'll enhance their resilience, strengthen family bonds, and reduce the need for specialised services.

Managing your own caseload, you'll guide cases from assessment to planning and provide and support interventions, coordinating a multi-agency response, in addition you will provide targeted work to support Social Work Colleagues who are working at both CP and CIN.

To excel in this role, you should have an NVQ Level 4 or equivalent qualification/experience, a deep understanding of child protection policies, and a commitment to safeguarding children, young people, and vulnerable adults.

Proven experience working with vulnerable children, strong knowledge of child development, and a drive to improve outcomes for children and families are essential.

About us Why us?

Wiltshire Council is a friendly, welcoming place to work, with a 'One Council' ethos. Thats why we focus on getting the things that matter to our people right.Explore more benefits here!

Job responsibilities The role of the Keyworker is to establish strong relationships with children, young people, parents andcarers to enable a thorough understanding of barriers to them achieving positive outcomes and, usingappropriate intervention techniques and direct work, develop their resilience, strengthen familyrelationships and prevent the need for more intensive or specialist services.The role of the Keyworker is also to engage with children, young people and families using a holisticapproach to include them in assessment, planning, goal setting and decision making. In addition, therole includes working with partner organisations and coordinating and driving a joint family-basedapproach.Specific duties and responsibilities include:

Be knowledgeable and skilled in identifying the early signs of abuse and neglect and followingagreed local protocols for ensuring children and young people are protected from harm/risk ofharm (e.g. report a child at risk of significant neglect to social care).

Be the keyworker for a caseload of families with varying needs; manage time effectively andmaximise time spent on direct work delivering individual support and group interventions(including evidence-based parenting programmes) as part of a family action plan. These casesmay be from complex CAF-level up to child protection level and the keyworker will have theknowledge and skills to engage with the child/family at these levels of need (supported by aSenior Keyworker - or Social Worker for Child in Need and Child Protection cases).

Preparing a comprehensive, analytical and good quality child and family assessment - drawingon recent or existing referrals, assessments and other relevant information sources (includingother professionals/support network); completing the assessment in the home and ensuring itclearly reflects the voice of the child and the family.

Acting as a single point of contact for the child and their familyUsing a relationship-based model of practice, help the child and family to define the goals anddesired outcomes they want to achieve and help them set the priority order for delivering them.Using a family focused approach, work with the child and family to draft the familys actionplan.

Coordinating the familys action plan, tracking and ensuring all contributors are effectivelydelivering on time.

Leading and facilitating Team Around the Child/Family meetings; capturing agreed actions andensuring the lead for each action is doing what they had committed to do (and on time).

Capturing and recording relevant actions, events and decisions in accordance with casemanagement principles.

Attend and actively participate in Local Allocation Groups as required; followingagreement/decision from a senior keyworker or assistant team manager, be able to presentclearly and concisely cases requiring multi-agency input and resource decision making.

Working in partnership with parents to encourage independence and self-reliance and helpingthem to develop a consistent and positive approach to parenting, addressing behaviours andovercoming challenges.

Promoting and facilitating parental understanding of a child and young persons needs.

Supporting parents to provide an appropriate environment in which children and young peoplefeel safe and which encourages the development of their self-esteem and resilience.

Understanding adult difficulties and the impact they have on children, tailoring support anddelivering effective joint working accordingly.

Supporting children and families to become involved in their local community and to accesswider opportunities in education, play, work, leisure and volunteering.

Working directly with children providing appropriate and tailored support to address a range ofCA09-1159 Family Keyworker April 2024 Page 5 of 9developmental needs including disruptive and challenging behaviour.

Identifying when a child is a young carer and undertaking a young carers assessmentfollowing agreed protocol.Working within a legislative framework.

Operating within relevant policy, legal, ethical and professional boundaries when working withchildren and families.

Effectively delivering all statutory requirements.Following local practice standards and protocols.Supervision and continual development.

Actively engaging in individual and group supervision and embed learning in practice.

Maintaining up to date knowledge and skills as required by the role.

Participating in appraisal and team meetings and contribute to individual and teamdevelopment.Specific requirements for this post:Flexible WorkingThere will be a requirement to occasionally work with children and families when they most need itwhich may be outside of normal working hours, including weekends. The number of out of hoursworked will not exceed 10% of the total contracted hours per week.

Person Specification Qualifications

• NVQ Level 4 or equivalent significant experience in a relevant field (with a commitment to
• undertake qualification as required) e.g. Health, social care, early years, adult education,
• education, working with parents.
• Proven experience of working with vulnerable children.
• Thorough knowledge and understanding of child development.
• Committed to improving outcomes for children and families.
• Understanding of child protection policies and procedures and the importance of safeguarding
• children, young people and vulnerable adults.
• Direct experience of working with families.
• o Practical knowledge and experience of working with vulnerable families and being aware
• of any issues a practitioner may face while working with vulnerable families.
• o Experience of setting appropriate professional boundaries with families.
• o Experience of engaging parents in community activities.
• o Knowledge and direct experience of developing and maintaining effective relationships
• with parents; practical experience of working with parents one-to-one and experience of
• providing support to families in their own home; confidence and ability to work alone and
• prepared to work with families in their own homes.
• CA09-1159 Family Keyworker April 2024 Page 6 of 9
• o Experience of facilitating group work for parents.
• o Knowledge of child development and its influence on parent/child relationship in every
• stage of childs development.
• o Ability to engage and motivate resistant and hard to reach families.
• Direct experience of working in partnership with schools.
• Knowledge of the role of social worker and related professionals.
• To work flexibly in responding to the needs of families as they emerge.
• Able to communicate effectively and concisely and with a range of different individuals and
• groups and using various mediums (verbal, written, etc).
• Ability to effectively plan and prioritise workload associated with case work.
• Knowledge of additional support services available for families and experience of signposting
• or referring families to these services.
• Experience in supporting families to make positive choices.
• Experience of supporting parents in managing childrens challenging behavior.
• Ability to travel locally and countywide,
• Able to keep excellent records of work,
• Able to use IT systems,
• Committed to anti-oppressive and anti-discriminatory practice.
• Experience of working with families with complex needs who typically find it difficult to engage
• with services.
• Demonstrable experience of sharing information to improve outcomes.
• Experience of using the Common Assessment Framework (CAF) or an equivalent holistic early
• help assessment to improve outcomes for children.

Experience

• High level of relevant and practical experience acquired on.
• An advanced understanding of relevant procedures and working practices.
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