Family Support Worker

**About Us**
At West Sussex County Council, we are ambitious for our children and our workforce and are committed to improving our services for children and families in West Sussex. You will join us at a key time in our improvement journey, while we focus on delivering flawless family support and driving forward our ‘Children First’ improvement plan.

The Early Help Service is an integral part of the Children, Young People and Learning Directorate. We work with children, families, and young people to help ensure that every child is supported to achieve his or her potential. Working collaboratively with social care so that all children and families are accessing the right help and protection from the most appropriate part of children’s services.

Early help ensures that children and families receive accessible and co-ordinated support when they need it. This support ranges across a continuum from universal preventative approaches through to more targeted help where families are experiencing more complex or multiple difficulties. At every level support is designed to address and reduce the problems or challenges and prevent them getting worse.

**About The Job**

**Salary**: NJC Grade 7 £25,409 to £27,852 (Pro Rata £12,704 to £13,926)
Working Pattern: Part-time (18.5 hours)
Contract Length: Permanent
Location: Horsham

The Early Help Service within West Sussex is committed to providing a consistent and accessible family focused service for children, young people and their families. Through its Supporting Families approach to earliest help, we aim to ensure that children’s needs are met as early as possible, supporting families to resolve issues before they become harder to reverse.

Early Help recognise that education professionals are well placed to identify early and emerging concerns for children, young people and families and to this end the Dedicated Schools Team Family Support Workers work collaboratively with our school colleagues. We aim to deliver timely and targeted early intervention and identify and adapt to new and emerging themes that create challenges for schools and their pupils.

As a Family Support Worker in the Dedicated Schools Team, you will seek to develop a good understanding of the school’s cohort, needs and challenges and build a positive and trusting relationship between early help and schools.

You will assess the needs of children, young people and families in order to access, coordinate and deliver the support they need to improve their outcomes and lived experience and prevent their difficulties becoming irreversible.

You’ll deliver direct work and interventions around a range of issues to children, young people and their families that helps to keep children safe and supports and sustains positive change for them and their families.

You will need strong skills in partnership working, developing and maintaining effective partnerships with parents, families and partners such as education, health, Police and Children’s Social Care, to achieve positive outcomes for children.

You’ll need to be able to travel independently around the county, including to areas that may not be easily accessible by public transport and must have access to your own vehicle. There is a regular and intrinsic requirement to communicate in English with members of the public

**Experience and Skills** Key Skills**:

- Works effectively with families in crisis, managing own and others’ anxieties and working within the boundaries of the role.
- Manage casework effectively with children/young people and their families, establishing needs, setting objectives, and reviewing progress.
- Engage and work creatively in partnership with children/young people and their families, in order to effect positive and lasting change.
- Work in an empowering way with families, focusing on their collective strengths and resources, e.g., using a solution-focused approach.
- Reflect on own practice and to learn from experience. To take responsibility for own performance and to be proactive in relation to own work and professional development.
- Analyse and interpret complex information and prioritise needs in order to make recommendations/decisions which will have a positive outcome.

**Qualifications and/or experience**:

- NVQ level 3 Health and Social Care or equivalent qualification, demonstrating that level of ability in working with children / young people and families or relevant experience. Relevant organisational knowledge of systems, procedures and policies associated with operating a client focused service.
- Significant experience of working with children / young people and their families in a crisis situation and using a range of direct work interventions.
- Experience of working in a multi-agency context, demonstrating an awareness of differing roles and responsibilities and effective methods of collaboration.
- Knowledge of child and adolescent development and age-appropriate behaviour relevan