Support Worker

**Information about the role**:
**Grade**: H scp 25-28

**Group**:Children’s Social Care and Lifelong Learning

**Service**:Children’s Social Care

**What we want you to do**:
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- To act as lead professional for Life Story work to help care experienced children to make sense of their past and understand the journey of their identity and help children to develop a ‘coherent story’.
- To work closely with care experienced children (if age appropriate), their birth and present families, their social worker and/or an adoption agency worker to ensure they are open about and able to ‘hold’ their story to ensure care experienced children are able to understand their dual identities.
- To ensure the book is an autobiographical narrative involving both past adverse experiences and current experiences in safe relationships and includes relevant information such as birth details, a family tree, timeline, photographs, and an explanation of the child moving from their birth families care. This should include information on their birth parents’ own vulnerabilities.
- Undertake the completion of therapeutic life story work with children in our care and children going through adoption.
- Enable a secure base for children and young people to explore their past, present and future.
- Adopt a creative approach to life story work and support others to be creative in their approach to life story work, through play, arts and crafts.
- Provide opportunities for colleagues to support life story work as a live, continuous process.
- Work collaboratively with colleagues and other agencies when undertaking life story work.
- Support colleagues who are undertaking life story work.
- Consult with the key people in the child’s support network to decide when is the right time to introduce life story work.
- Help children and young people to manage difficult feelings and to develop resilience and a positive sense of self.
- Participate in training initiatives for the staff group.
- Participate in the training for foster carers and significant people in a child’s life.
- Support social work staff with the undertaking of Life Story Work.
- Support the developing and maintaining of resources for direct work with children and young people.
- Support the development of the virtual ‘memory box’.
- Such other responsibilities allocated which are appropriate to the grade of the post.

**What you need to be successfulthe essentials**

**Qualifications**
- NVQ 4 or equivalent in social care.
- Evidence of Continuing Professional Development in core areas of practice which reflects the needs of clients

**Knowledge**

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- Child care legislation and statutory guidance
- Child development across the age group and inhibitors to growth and development
- Every Child Matters Agenda for Looked After Children
- Good understanding of life story work
- Understand the value and components of Therapeutic Life Story Work
- Understand the various models of information collation
- Ability to communicate with children and understand their emotions
- Able to interpret and make best use of opportunities in the process
- Skills in working directly with children in terms of life narratives
- Ability to address trauma and loss with empathic understanding
- Adult mental health, substance misuse, domestic abuse, physical ill health and disability, Systemic practice
- Statutory and organisational contexts, corporate parenting responsibilities and Government policy contexts and drivers
- Commitment to promoting Equality and Diversity

**Experience**
- Ability to place the child or young person at the centre of all practice and decision making.
- Relevant experience, of working with children and families
- Experience of completing life story work
- Flexible and responsive approach to working environment and arrangements and the ability to work outside normal office hours.
- Demonstrating sound organisational skills, working under pressure and determining priorities to meet strict deadlines