Parent Co-ordinator

**Parent Co-ordinator - Warrington (17.5 hours)**

**This role is based in Warrington and requires significant face to face interaction and therefore successful applicants MUST live within 1 hour drive of the Warrington area. Please note that this role is not suitable for hybrid working.**

Pure Insight is a charity established in 2013 as a direct response to issues highlighted by young people leaving care in Stockport. We now deliver a range of services across Stockport, Cheshire East, Trafford, Salford and Warrington

Pure Insight provides practical and emotional support to care experienced youngsters through a difficult transition period from leaving care to adult independence.

Success of this overall charity depends on the understanding of young care leaver needs and the engagement of local community to identify local solutions. By directly involving young people in the design and delivery of our projects we can link them into a variety of different support networks allowing them to access the help and advice they need to solve problems, overcome barriers, improve health and wellbeing, gain confidence and move forward with their lives.

**The need**

Young Care leavers are some of the most vulnerable young people in our society; many leave school with few qualifications and a significant number are unemployed, living in inadequate housing, and experience poor health and levels of poverty. Nationally 25% of female care leavers become parents between 16 -18 years of age and 50% by the age of 24.

Adjusting to parenthood must happen simultaneously whilst they are still in the process of transitioning out of care or adapting to independent living. Coping with the stressful demands of learning to take care of themselves and a baby at such a young age, whilst often still struggling to make sense of unstable, often chaotic childhoods, can leave little space for engaging with services in the wider community. Instead, many care leavers struggle with poor self-esteem. Isolated and lonely, they may lack the confidence, social skills and social network to join new parenting groups in their community.

Additionally, time spent in the care system can make care leavers reluctant to ask for and accept support.Becoming a parent can be the most rewarding experience in the world, but all parents need support networks to thrive as a family.

The post of Parent Coordinator is an established role. The role is to take full responsibility for certain aspects of the projects work, as detailed below. All duties are to be carried out in line with current operating policies and procedures and any procedures of the partnership agency. In the first instance the post holder reports to the area manager.
- To develop trusting relationships with young parents (care leavers).
- Work alongside the family to identify what support they feel will meet their needs and create a plan around this.
- To take responsibility for volunteer recruitment, training, selection and matching via the existing mentoring programme, identifying volunteers passionate about supporting young families.
- To deliver volunteer supervision, evaluation and support, including some out of hours activity.
- Liaise and work in partnership with professionals in health and social care and other local organisations around the needs of the parents.
- To ensure that all live documents Care Leaver Parent Referral, Family Plan and Risk Assessment, monitoring data and case notes are completed and recorded electronically.
- To interpret monitoring data and produce and present evaluation reports, share good practice - the voice of children and parents is central to this.
- Identify and train a team of Pure Insight volunteers who will take on different roles depending on their strengths and skills.
- To ensure that there is clear definition of the roles and expectations of each person within the Plan.
- To effectively manage the Plan through the provision of accessible sound advice, practical and emotional support including a WhatsApp group for the Angels Team and regular communication with the care experienced parent.
- To review the progress and development of the plan at the end of the agreed timeframe, record the outcome and identify further support needs where required.
- Provide advocacy in formal meetings such as child protection, team around the child and support parents to engage with statutory services in their lives.
- Support parents to access other support in the community.
- Deliver Pure Insight parent support groups via face to face and online, also explore peer support options locally - give and receive approach.
- To liaise with referral agencies, build and maintain positive relationships to ensure the best possible outcomes for young families.
- To provide information and advice to other project staff on specific areas of project activity that the post holder has responsibility for.
- To cover any appropriate aspect of other team members roles in their absence.
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