Sessional Playworker

**About Us**:
**THE EXTRAORDINARY STORY OF SHOFA’S MARKET**

Children’s Services in Westminster City Council is a world of extraordinary stories. Where courageous and inspiring professionals bring everything to their work.

Sometimes this even includes heartbreak. Shofa is a shining example. Shofa’s brother suffered with his mental health and died tragically young. She uses his memory as motivation to give Westminster Youth Council members the opportunity to have a voice and get involved in decision making. This passion resulted in in her innovation: The Westminster Youth Market. Here local teenagers learn about entrepreneurship and develop their personal skills. This is an inclusive platform where everyone’s contribution and abilities are celebrated. Inspired by a promising life cut short, Shofa believes without vision there is no direction and every young person should be supported to realise their dreams.

**The Role**:
As a Sessional Playworker you can make your own powerful contribution by helping disabled children and their families or carers achieve an even better quality of life. Joining us in either one of our Bi-Borough Short Breaks Provisions in Westminster or in a community setting in which you will be supporting disabled children, you will find that you are part of a close-knit ‘work family’ - a group of people who are fiercely child-centred, and who are passionate about making a difference to young people’s lives.

While every day will present you with new challenges, your overall mission will be to provide care and recreation to disabled children, and to help them develop social, physical, intellectual, creative and emotional skills through play. As a team, we have one clear goal - to make our children happy, and to help them become as independent as possible. You will support this ambition by helping us plan and deliver a wide range of activities including sports, games and arts and crafts. Some of these activities will be on-site, while others will be in the community and possibly even in the child’s home, but regardless of where you are working, you will act as a key worker to that child or family.

This is an all-encompassing role in which you will provide assistance and care throughout every aspect of the child’s time with you. As such you will assist with transporting the child to their activities (either on the minibus or as part of a walking bus), and you will provide personal care as needed. We strive to nurture independence in our children, so you will listen to what they are telling you and incorporate their wishes where possible.

There is great scope for career development within this role, as we will provide you with fantastic training and development opportunities, and you will have scope to work alongside other professionals such as Physiotherapists and Social Workers in delivering programmes that have been shaped to enhance a young person's wellbeing.

Please refer to the **Job Description** **for more information.

**About You**:
Our work is deeply joyful and rewarding - but it can also be challenging. You will therefore thrive with us if you have experience of working with children and young people who have learning disabilities, autism or complex health needs. This will include having a good understanding of any issues relating to learning, sensory and physical disabilities. It is essential that you are a team player as we work collaboratively with parents and carers, and you will be keen to support additional activities such as family days-out. While experience of working with families in their own homes would be an advantage, it is more important that you have some background in working in a play, leisure or education environment. With great communication skills, you will be comfortable working with young people from a wide variety of backgrounds and you will have an understanding of safeguarding procedures.

With the flexibility to work early morning, daytime, evening and weekend sessions as needed, you will be able to set boundaries when working with children. If you have previously had moving and handling training, or you have a paediatric first aid certificate that would be really helpful, though these are also skills that we can teach you.

**What We Offer**:
Westminster is an amazing place. We are home to more than 200,000 residents from all backgrounds, over 50,000 vibrant and vital businesses and three-quarters-of-a-million people work in Westminster. Westminster City Council’s strategy is to work towards a Fairer Westminster. A Fairer Westminster is one in which our communities are at the heart of our decision-making and help to determine the city’s future. By working directly with our communities and other partners, we can build a more inclusive city that celebrates our diverse communities, and where residents, workers and visitors from all backgrounds will feel welcome and safe.

As a forward thinking Council we appreciate that people wor