Family Support Practitioner

Hertfordshire’s Family Centre Service is made up of the Public Health Nursing Service (Health Visitors and School Nurses) and the Family Support Service. Our purpose is to support children and families to have the best start in life, develop well and thrive. We provide families with children aged up to 5 years with a wide range of services, information and support on key areas relating to family life.

As a Family Support Practitioner, you will encourage parents of children under five to be involved in their learning, growth, and well-being, with an emphasis on the community's most vulnerable families. You will engage with all parents and carers, including soon-to-be and young parents, while gaining a solid awareness of the local community's demographics and the networks, services, facilities, and support systems that are available to families in the area.

Key Duties:

- Promote the engagement of parents of under 5s in their children’s learning, development and wellbeing, with particular focus on the more vulnerable families in the community. This will also include engaging young parents and parents-to-be.
- Hold a caseload of vulnerable families, working within the defined support interventions, planning creative responses to families’ needs and deliver support sessions and activities within the home and community, using various evidence-based parenting models and programmes, individually and in groups
- Lead and participate in the Family First Assessment (and others), including attendance at multi
- agency professional’s meetings, supporting the engagement of families in greatest need in order to improve outcomes for children under 5.
- Work with the Lead & Senior to identify, design, plan and deliver activities and support interventions to encourage the engagement of parents and children up to 5 years, in line with the Hertfordshire Seven Outcome Bees Framework.
- Provide universal and more specialist information, advice and guidance to best support to families, relating to services available through the Family Centre and support them to access sessions and become active in their children’s learning and development, with a particular emphasis on the needs of the most vulnerable groups in the community.
- You will be required to lone-work in the homes of services users from time to time.
- Some evening and Saturday work on occasion. Centre opening hours are between 8:00am - 6pm.

**Requirements**:

- At least a Level 3 in a recognised professional qualification in health, education, childcare, social care or equivalent
- Knowledge of the importance of safeguarding children
- Excellent communication skills
- Experience of working with families from a wide range of backgrounds
- You will need a valid UK driving licence and access to a car during working hours, and willingness to travel on a regular basis. You must have insurance that allows you to drive for business purposes.
- You will also require an enhanced DBS check.

A full JD is available at the bottom of the page.

This is a Full Time role.
Hours per week: 37.5
Working Pattern: Monday - Friday 09:00-17:00

By the end of these three days, there was a brilliantly multi-faceted set of themes and ideas, which formed the starting point for the rest of the Mission 25 process to build on. The aim of Mission 25 is to give every staff member and volunteer the opportunity to play their part in shaping the strategy to do “more and better, together” so that we double our impact by 2025. We deliver a vast array of services across Herts, Beds and Bucks that reach over 135,000 individuals annually.

These include:

- Provision of over 700 units of accommodation for homeless people
- Move on accommodation for individuals moving onto independent living
- Housing and practical/emotional support for young asylum seekers
- Community HUBs hosting a range of activities and meeting space hire
- Childcare provision in Hertfordshire
- Family support through a network of children’s and family centres covering Hertfordshire and Bedford
- Therapeutic and non-therapeutic support for male and female victims of domestic abuse and their children
- Independent sexual violence services across Bedfordshire, Luton and Hertfordshire
- Domestic abuse perpetrator reform programmes across Bedfordshire
- Youth services offering emotional wellbeing support and youth club opportunities for 11-19 year olds alongside our National Airplay programme funded by the RAF Benevolent Fund
- A community gym where everyone can enjoy the benefits of physical exercise Our values remain at the forefront of how we operate as a charity, and it is important to us that all staff and volunteers can fully buy in to our ethos.