Trainer Consultant

Job Reference: 1592493530-2
- Date Posted: 6 March 2025
- Recruiter: AFKA Scotland
- Location: Edinburgh
- Salary: On Application
- Sector: Support / IAG, Tutor / Trainer

**Background**

The Association for Fostering, Kinship and Adoption Scotland (AFKA) is an independent charity that promotes and facilitates evidence-informed best practice in fostering, kinship care and adoption, through advising, training, and influencing practitioners and policymakers, and supporting them to improve outcomes for children and families.

Our Vision is a future where every practitioner working with children, young people and their families is knowledgeable, skilled, confident, and empowered to support the safe, secure, and loving care to which every child has a right.

Our services support agencies and professionals to implement child centred, evidenced informed practice that involves children and their families in decisions about their lives, protect their rights and promotes inclusion. Through our multi-disciplinary communities of practice, we enable social workers, lawyers, health professionals and educators to work effectively across professional boundaries to meet the needs of children, their families, and their carers. As a membership organisation, AFKA Scotland uses its links with professional bodies and agencies across the country to contribute to the development of policy and practice at a local and national level. We have a collaborative agreement with CoramBAAF.

AFKA Scotland's multi-disciplinary team has a wealth of experience and up-to-date expertise in practice relating to kinship care, fostering and adoption and delivers a wide range of workshops, training and consultancy, post qualifying courses, and conferences to assist professionals to develop the knowledge and skills they require when working in this specialist area. Our Trainer Consultants provide direct services to agencies, including advice, training, consultancy on complex cases and independently chairing panels (kinship, fostering and adoption).

We work closely with our research colleagues in AFKA Scotland, and our research underpins our evidence informed approach. We are committed to #keepthepromise, have been instrumental in Promise funded work and have been on a journey to adapt to the changing landscape of care in Scotland.

We are seeking to recruit a highly experienced and talented practitioner to the role of Trainer Consultant.

**Job summary and purpose**

**Purpose of the role will be to**:

- Provide informed advice and support to member agencies, practitioners and individuals involved in kinship care, fostering, adoption and permanence with children, young people, and their families/carers - promoting evidence informed best practice that promotes a good childhood and the best outcomes for children and young people.
- Provide supportive forums for practitioners from a range of professional disciplines and to facilitate their participation providing support and the opportunity to share practice development.
- Provide a range of direct services to agencies and practitioners within the social work, education, legal and health professions. This will include creating and delivering training courses both face-to-face and online on a variety of topics related to AFKAs specialisms. The role can also include providing consultancy (which may involve direct contact with children and young people), independent chairing of meetings and panels, learning from disruption meetings and service and case reviews.
- Participate in the development of the service provided by AFKA Scotland and to support its role in providing an independent voice on policy and practice at a local and national level in kinship care, fostering, adoption and permanence.

**The main duties and responsibilities will be to**:

- Design and deliver workshops to a range of professionals involved in providing services to children and young people, their families of origin, and within kinship, fostering, adoption and permanence both in-person and online.
- Develop resources and materials for use by practitioners working with children and young people, their families of origin, and within kinship, fostering, adoption and permanence.
- Support AFKA Scotland's contribution to the development of practice and policy at local and national level, to #keepthepromise and work alongside colleagues in our hosted services: Scotland's Adoption Register (SAR) and the Kinship Care Advice Service Scotland (KCASS).
- Contribute to AFKA Scotland projects which may involve connecting, developing and delivering training and developing practice guidance with our partner agencies.
- Organise and facilitate one or more of AFKA's Forums, Community of Practice Forums. and / or local practitioner meetings..
- Provide informed advice and support to member agencies responding to enquiries timeously.
- Provide independent consultancy to agencies including unplanned endings, service reviews and other complex case wo