This is an exciting opportunity to join the Children in Care Support Service as a Children’s Practitioner on a zero-hour sessional contract, delivering an essential role supporting the relationships between children in care and their families in a variety of different ways.

 

We as a service are responsible for the delivery of family time (previously known as contact) in order to enable looked after children to see their family members in a safe and secure setting in line with the legal requirements of their case. 

 

Due to the unprecedented year we have all experience due to the pandemic, Warwickshire similar to all the other Local Authorities have seen a rise in the number of children coming into care. This has meant that the need for family time has greatly increased and we need 12 or more workers to come into the team to support this.

 

It is very important that children get to see their parents to continue to build relationships and memories together. This makes our work seen as very important and valued.

 

The Children in Care Support Service also support Direct work and Life story work with the children and families we support. 

We offer therapeutic life story work delivered within our wider service for children aged 5 years and over, but we also create life story books for our younger children. 

 

We can also provide additional support to our carers in terms of daily respite to enable stability of placement and encouraging and enabling our young people to access hobbies and recreational activities where there may be a barrier.

 

The team has a blend of Children’s Practitioners with varying experience in family support work and some of which who are employed on a sessional basis. We support family time to take place in several family time centres across the county or outside in community-based venues where appropriate.

We are looking for workers who are passionate about making a difference to the lives of children and their families and acknowledges the benefits of working WITH not TO or FOR to support change. We work in a restorative way with our families to support them to make changes.

 

The role would be to support and supervise family time within a caseload of ongoing work, completion of the required admin associated with this including family time recordings that could be used within the court process.  

 

Building relationships with children and young people in order to support their placements and provide respite support and facilitate the engagement in hobbies and activities when required.

 

 

Sessional staff are not required to provide life story work as part of their role.

 

If you would like to be part of a busy, dynamic and supportive team then we welcome your applications.

 

For further information please see the Job Description and Person Specification.  

 

Key Requirements

 

Support children in care to engage in safe and positive family time within a secure setting.

 

To understand the importance of family time, and the value of sustaining good connections within relationships between children and young people and their birth families.

 

Ability to work independently, this will mean you will be primarily lone working and travel across the county to meet the needs of the service.

You will need to be comfortable driving distances with children of various ages, at different times of the day.

 

A knowledge of car seats and child development would be beneficial.

 

To be available for work at our peak times which includes after school 2 – 6.30pm Monday - Friday, and weekends either Saturday or Sunday 9 – 3pm

As part of being a Disability Confident employer we guarantee to interview anyone with a disability whose application meets the minimum criteria for the post. By ‘minimum criteria’ we mean that you must provide us with evidence in your application form which demonstrates that you generally meet the level of competence required for each competence, as well as meeting any of the qualifications, skills or experience defined as essential in the person specification.

 

Should you require application forms in an alternative format / language or any adjustments to be made throughout the application process or upon appointment, please contact hrandpayroll@warwickshire.gov.uk  and we will make every effort to meet your specific requirements.

 

Warwickshire County Council is committed to equality of opportunity for all staff and is keen to address areas of under representation in its workforce and would particularly welcome applications from all suitably qualified persons from the BAME community, disabled people and people from the LGBT+ Community.