Child & Family Worker - Family Safeguarding Worthing

**About Us**
We are committed to improving our services for the children and families we support in West Sussex. Now is a brilliant time in our improvement journey for you to join us We are currently establishing a new and experienced leadership team, who are responsible for driving forward our ‘Children First’ improvement plan.

As a Child & Family worker joining our team in Worthing, you will support our registered Social Workers in assessing, planning and delivering interventions to children and their families, which includes supporting step-down processes and transfer to Early Help services.

**About The Job** Salary: £25,409 to £27,852**
**Working Pattern: Full time, 37 hours per week**
**Contract Length: Permanent**
**Location: Worthing**
**Interview Date: TBC**

You will be pivotal in developing and offering a creative range of services for children and their families to meet needs as identified e.g. undertaking direct work and purposeful interventions with children, young people, parents/ carers, families and groups, and delivering support specifically tailored to them.

You will be collaborating closely with families, aiming to support them with working towards positive changes, allowing children and young people to reach their full potential.

Establishing effective working relationships is a key skill you will need to acquire, as you will be working closely with colleagues within Children’s Social Care, Foster Carers, and other external agencies.

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

- Strong resilience skills are required due to the nature of this role. It can present as sensitive and challenging but extremely positive, bettering the lives of children and their families.
- Ability to show initiative, as you’ll be responsible for organising your own workload. You will also need to respond to unanticipated problems and make informed decisions independently, though seeking advice where necessary.
- Excellent communication and interpersonal skills with the ability to organise and present information clearly to key stakeholders, including the ability to persuade and successfully convince others of a particular course of action, while gaining the trust of service users.
- Ability to engage and intervene in partnership with children/ young people, their families and other external agencies.
- Ability to work in an empowering way, focusing on collective strengths and resources.
- Ability to maintain clear, accurate records of all work undertaken, being able to produce case reports and correspondence.
- Sound and accurate IT skills, including report writing, maintaining accurate records, ensuring confidentiality and protecting information.

**Qualifications and/or experience**:
**_ Essential_**
- GCSE English and Maths, or equivalent qualification or experience operating at this level of literacy and numeracy.
- QCF Level 3 Diploma for the Children and Young People’s Workforce (or equivalent), or demonstrable equivalent comparable experience.
- Knowledge and understanding of the development of children and young people, and age-appropriate behaviour.
- Experience of providing advice and guidance to others.
- Significant experience of using a range of direct work interventions in working with children, young people and their families.
- Experience of using assessment planning and reviewing processes.
- Experience of forming effective working relationships within a multi-agency setting.
- Requirement to communicate in English with members of the public
- Valid and full driving licence or ability to travel around the county independently

**_Desirable_**
- An understanding of systems, procedures and policies relevant to Children’s Social Care e.g. child protection and safeguarding procedures, practice and policy.
- Experience of working in a Social Care Environment.
- Experience of working with children/young people and their families in crisis or complex situations.

**Rewards and Benefits**
As an employer we recognise that it is our employees that are central to everything we do. We aim to create a supportive and dynamic working environment where employees can achieve their full potential, achieve a healthy work-life balance and are rewarded for the work they do.

In addition to working within a great team and a brilliant opportunity you will receive:

- A competitive salary
- A generous pension scheme
- Training and development opportunities, including coaching and mentoring
- Flexible working
- A range of discounts giving our staff access to hundreds of offers with the opportunity to save over £1,000 (Including: Argos, Samsung, Asos, B&Q and many more)
- Free access to employee assistance programmes
- Discounted membership at selected local sports and fitness centres
- A range of commuting and business travel discounts and initiatives

For a full list of the benefits offered to you as a West Sussex County Council employee you can find them on our **Rewards and Benefits** page.

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