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Islington Council

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Contact

Address: Islington Council; 222 Upper Street; London; N1 1XR
Contact Number: 020 7527 2000

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Closed

Ref: EY/1223/038 Vacancy ID: 5886355

Family Support Practitioner

Closed for applications on: 5-Jan-2024 00:00

Vacancy status: Closed

Closed for applications on: 5-Jan-2024 00:00

Location

Site: Hornsey Road Children's Centre, 8 Tiltman Place, Hornsey Road, London N7 7EN
Address: 8 Tiltman Place, Hornsey Rd,
Town: Finsbury Park, London
Postcode: N7 7EN
Major / Minor Region: London

Contract type & working pattern

Contract

Fixed term: 7 months (Plus 1x Fixed for 1 year Maternity Cover)

Hours

Full time
Part time

1x 35 hours per week, 1x 17.5 hours per week (Monday to Friday with Saturdays as required)

Salary

Salary: £40,005 - £41,286 per annum (pro rata)
Salary period: Yearly
Grade: (SO2, scp 27-29)

Specialty

Main area: Family Support Practitioner

Interview date: 19/01/2024

Our mission

We are determined to create a more equal Islington, where everyone who lives here has an equal chance to thrive. To do this, everyone who works at Islington Council lives by a set of values which guide us in everything that we do: collaborative, ambitious, resourceful, and empowering. They spell out ‘CARE’, which is what we think public service is all about.

Detailed job description and main responsibilities

1. Provide a flexible, graduated approach which responds to the identified needs of families. This will range from offering hands on practical help to intensive support to families in their homes at a variety of times including early morning, evenings or at weekends.

2. Undertake the role of Lead Professional, co-ordinating the professional network through a Team around the Family and one whole family plan which is reviewed and adjusted regularly in order to meet the family’s continuing needs.

3. Complete collaborative Early Help Assessments and SMART family friendly action plans to address family needs and improve family functioning.

4. Establish effective professional relationships with key partners such as health, employment services, targeted and specialist services, schools, housing and early years’ settings.

5. Work in partnership with parents/carers to increase parental confidence and capacity, supporting healthy attachment and encouraging containing and nurturing relationships that promote child development.

6. Contribute to the implementation, delivery and evaluation of evidence based early intervention practice models including parenting programmes in partnership with other professionals.

7. Maintain accurate, up-to-date and succinct records that demonstrates work completed and progress towards outcomes.

8. Help families to develop their resilience by maintaining an up to date knowledge of national and local resources available to families in their locality, including through the voluntary and community sector, faith based organisations, universal services such as play and youth and training and employment services.

9. Deliver interventions that improve children’s outcomes such as encouraging the take up of early education provision for 2, 3 and 4 year olds; ensuring school attendance is a priority for children and young people; improving the management of health issues; reducing anti-social behaviour and offending; addressing the impact of domestic violence and abuse and providing support and guidance for families to enable them to progress to work or gain successful employment.

10. To work in accordance with local and national child protection and safeguarding procedures and adhere to London Borough of Islington policies and procedures.

11. Ensure that interventions are trauma informed and rooted in motivational practice, including participation in group and individual supervision, reflecting on practice, contributing to quality assurance and self-evaluation.

It is the policy of Islington Council that no user of service, present or future employee or job applicant receives less favourable treatment on the grounds of their sex, perceived or actual sexual orientation, marital status, race, religion or belief, age, creed, colour, nationality, national origin, ethnic origin, or disability, or on the grounds of their association with someone in one of these groups; nor is disadvantaged by any conditions or requirements which cannot be shown to be justified. We welcome applications from Black and Minority Ethnic candidates and acknowledge our responsibility to mitigate against racial discrimination. 

Please note: Priority will be given to those at risk of redundancy within Islington Council. Current employees who are part of the redeployment pool must meet the essential criteria for shortlisting to be prioritised.

Islington Council operates a guaranteed interview scheme for candidates with disabilities who meet the minimum criteria and we are committed to providing support to applicants who request reasonable adjustments to be made during the recruitment process and throughout their career with us.

We are committed to safeguarding and promoting the welfare of children, young people and vulnerable adults, and expects all staff, and volunteers to share this commitment.

We are also committed to flexible working and will consider requests where possible.

Islington Council also operates random drug or alcohol testing for safety critical roles or for where there may be just cause.

To apply for this position please use the online application process. Please note that the council only accepts online applications, no CVs or alternative forms of applications are accepted. If you are unable to use the online process please contact the Recruitment team on 020 7527 2155 or e-mail [email protected]

Applicant requirements

This post is subject to the Rehabilitation of Offenders Act 1974 (Exceptions) Order 1975 (Amendment) (England and Wales) Order 2020 and it will be necessary for a submission for Disclosure to be made to the Disclosure and Barring Service.

Person specification

Qualifications

Essential criteria

Minimum NVQ level 3 or equivalent level, in early years, family support, education, health, social care, play/youth work or similar, with post qualifying experience as a practitioner in a related fieldwork setting.

Experience

Essential criteria

Substantial experience in building purposeful relationships balancing empathy and authority in order to assess family needs, create family plans and deliver interventions that lead to improved family outcomes and longer-term resilience.
Proven ability to work collaboratively with partner agencies to improve family outcomes including experience of coordinating professional networks around families, taking the role of lead professional where appropriate.

Experience

Essential criteria

Safeguarding- able to safeguard and promote the welfare of children. Knowledge of relevant local and national safeguarding procedures and thresholds with experience of applying these to practice.

Skills

Essential criteria

Challenging inequalities- demonstrable ability to recognise and address the impact of discriminatory factors such as class, income, gender, sexuality, lone parenting, disability, race and racism on children and families; and to engage with and support children and families and work with other professionals to address the discriminatory disadvantages families in Islington may face in accessing services such as education, employment and housing including the ability to adhere to the council’s dignity for all policy.
Relationships and effective direct work- an understanding of child development, trauma informed practice, and the family/environmental stressors that can have a detrimental impact on children reaching their full potential.
Flexibility- able to work independently and flexibly to enable service delivery to meet the needs of families, including at times.
Communication- able to communicate clearly and effectively in writing, using IT skills to produce accurate written records using basic software packages and case work recording systems.