Job Introduction
The Fostering service is recruiting a part time Family practitioner to work in the Stability and Sufficiency Fostering Team offering support to foster carers, children and Young people across the service as part of Stability Programme.
This is an exciting and developing role, in a newly created team offering intensive additional support to foster carers and placements at risk of instability on a county wide basis and will be based in Stafford. This service provides an additional county wide support service provision to children and young people in Staffordshire Foster placements that are at risk of placement breakdown with the intention to retain those children within the home of their primary carer
The service has ongoing targets to reduce unplanned endings and ensure greater stability of placements across Staffordshire. As part of this you will contribute to offering direct work to children and young people and Carer coaching support.
Main Responsibility
In this post you'll be able to provide high quality support to foster carers enabling them to develop relationships with children and young people, helping them to feel safe and secure living with their fostering family. You'll work creatively as part of a team to prevent unplanned endings and to avoid children moving into residential care. You'll also undertake some outreach work to support fostering families to help children to live with their families.
Overall you'll provide practical, emotional and coaching support to children and their foster carers, undertaking time limited, focused, direct work with children in care, utilising Social Learning Theory and Restorative Practice models.
Furthermore, in this role you'll:
- Promote strength-based relationships in all aspect of work undertaken with foster carers, in the districts with staff, partners, colleagues and children and families.
- Provide practical, emotional and coaching support to children and their carers to maintain stability within the home.
- Support fostering families, Special Guardians and children utilising Social Learning Theory, Social Pedagogy and Restorative Practice models to deliver direct work to provide stability.
- Carry out work outlined within assessment and planning on specific topics with children, families and carers (including but not limited to) staying safe, loss and grief, behaviour management, attachment and criminal exploitation. This may include time limited direct work to enable children to remain with their fostering and connected families.
- Undertake flexible, creative and imaginative approaches to offering support to children, young people their families and carers.
- Under guidance to contribute to relevant assessments, foster carers annual reviews and foster carer supervision, support and training
- Support the completion of documentation, reports and records
The Ideal Candidate
For this role you'll need as a minimum:
- An NVQ 3 Qualification in working with children and their families or equivalent, and a commitment to continuing professional development.
- Experience of direct work with children, their families and carers in a statutory or voluntary agency which provides services to vulnerable children and their families
- Due to travel involved you'll need to have a drivers licence and access to a vehicle
Within the role there will be weekend working on a Rota basis offering out of hours telephone support and direct visits where necessary to fostering households. Also, flexibility to work at any other location across the district as and when required is needed.
If you have nay questions or would like a chat please contact Katie Stretton Team Manager on 07964110931 or katie.Palin@staffordshire.gov.uk
About Staffordshire County Council
We are no ordinary county council:
Our Values:
The core of who we are as an organisation. Just like we all have personal values that shape our thoughts and behaviour, organisational values drive how we think and act collectively.
Our values were created and shaped by colleague feedback and national best practice and they sit at the heart of People Strategy:
We have a real sense of community spirit that brings our people together. This feeling of belonging means we are all connected to what we do and take pride in the difference we make every day for Staffordshire people. We are ambitious and our sights are set firmly on a better future.
We look forward and race ahead - that goes for your career too.
Our benefits:
We recognise that it is our employees that are central to everything we do. We aim to create a supportive working environment where employees can achieve their full potential and achieve a healthy work-life balance.
In addition to your salary, as a member of staff, you will have access to a range of benefits.
Our recruitment process:
As an Authority we are committed to safeguarding and promoting the welfare of children and young people/vulnerable adults and expect all staff and volunteers to share this commitment.
Staffordshire County Council is an equal opportunities organisation and Disability Confident employer. We encourage applications from all background and communities
As part of our commitment as a Disability Confident employer, a Silver Award Armed Forces employer and our commitment to supporting care leavers - we offer a guaranteed interview as long as your application meets the minimum criteria for the post.
As you’ll know safeguarding and promoting the welfare of our children and young people/vulnerable adults is important to us and that’s why this position is subject to a criminal record check from the Disclosure and Barring Service. If applicable you should disclose details of unspent and unfiltered spent reprimands, formal warnings, cautions and convictions in your application form.
