Portage Worker

Portage Worker (supporting disabled babies and young children)

Would you like to join a 5-star Portage team? Do you like to be busy and enjoy creative and inventive ways of working? Do you enjoy a career where two days are never the same? If you are enthusiastic and passionate about supporting disabled babies, our youngest children and their families this is the job for you.

You will play a part in minimising the disabling barriers that confront young children and their families.

Support offered through Portage is based on the principle that parents/carers are the key figures in the care and development of their child.

Portage Workers help parents/carers to be confident in their role whatever their child's needs may be.

They visit families weekly or fortnightly at home and use adapted Developmental Journals to identify a child's strengths and goals to support their development.

They also run groups for families to reduce feelings of isolation and form new friendships.

We use the Portage model to support individual child and family needs to highlight what is working well, finding out and building on what a child can do.

Parents take the lead in planning their goals ensuring that your support is relevant to the needs of their child and family.

Goals may focus on developing their movement, learning, play, communication and participation in the activities of everyday living.

The Portage team provide training to other professionals and will deliver the National Portage Association (NPA) 3-day training.

Portage Workers are committed to using the Early Support Team Around the Child process and working alongside large teams of multi-agency professionals to coordinate support for children and their families.

About you
We would love to hear from you if you:

• Have an enthusiastic, energetic, fun, resourceful and motivated approach to supporting disabled children and their families.
• Are an Early Year's practitioner who has experience of working with children and young people with disabilities.
• Have an excellent understanding of the needs of disabled children, young people and their families and recognise that parents are the experts in their own children.
• Have an excellent record of improving outcomes for disabled young children.
• Are brilliant at building relationships, see our youngest children's strengths and committed to working in close partnership with families and other professionals.

To find out more about the National Portage Association click on the link below:
This is a public/customer-facing role, where the statutory English language requirement for public sector workers applies.

Fairness and inclusion are at the heart of our vision for Cornwall.

In order to best serve our communities, we are striving to achieve a diverse workforce that is inclusive of all backgrounds, cultures and identities; e.g.

race, disability, sex, gender, age, religion and sexual orientation. We are an equal opportunities and Disability Confident employer, and we will assess applicants on their merits.

Cornwall Council is committed to safeguarding and following safer recruitment principles to help make sure our staff and volunteers are suitable to work with children, young people and adults at risk.

It's a vital part of creating a safe and positive environment and making a commitment to keeping all service users safe from harm.

Whilst the location/work-base for this role has been specified our evolving ways of working means that the role may require you to also work remotely (e.g. from home/other locations). We will discuss this with you during the recruitment process.

More information about working for Cornwall Council is available here.

We are happy to talk about flexible working options.

---