Family Support Worker

Cheshire West and Chester Council is a place where everyone can Thrive – through our core values of Teamwork, Honesty, Respect, Innovation, Value for Money and Empowerment.

The Children’s Transition team is based in Ellesmere Port and is co-located with wider children’s social care, early help and education teams. The children’s transition team works with young people from the age of 14 up until they are ready to transition into adult social care teams. We work across the whole borough of Cheshire West and Chester so there will be a requirement to travel. The Family Support Worker role promotes independence and life skills with disabled young people and their families with the outcome that disabled young people are prepared for adulthood and to achieve their optimum independence.

Our Children's Social Care workforce is passionate and committed to improving outcomes for children in our authority by providing a consistent, high-quality service to children and families, together with the support from excellent leadership and management. It is an exciting time to join Cheshire West and Chester. We are very proud that Ofsted have rated us as one of the top performing Children’s Services in the country, receiving overall “good” in our 2015 inspection and retaining “good” in our most recent inspection in 2019.

OFSTED has acknowledged that our children benefit from a stable and resilient workforce. We are approved as a Partner in Practice with the Department of Education and won "Overall council of the Year" and "Best Innovation" awards in 2018. We have developed and continue to embed ‘New Ways of Working’ with our multi-agency partners in order to ensure improved collaboration and one common approach to practice utilising Motivational Interviewing and Trauma Informed Practice. Our teams are encouraged to work creatively in planning and decision-making with children and their families in order to achieve positive outcomes and with a focus on prevention at every level.

As a local authority, we have developed an inspirational offer to support and develop our valued workforce, including.

• High quality progression and developmental opportunities

• Free parking at all our office locations

• Work-life balance, flexible and remote working arrangements available, including up to date IT equipment, and a smart mobile phone for all employees

• Competitive working rewards

• High quality supervision

• Strong reflective practice framework

As employers, we recognise that Cheshire West and Chester Council has a major role to play in improving the quality of life of its employees. We are committed to agile flexible and mobile working and helping employees to maintain an effective balance between their work and home life. The COVID lockdown has meant we have been able to improve our ability to work away from an office, to be more flexible and creative in the use of our time and maximising the use of technology, whilst at the same time ensuring we can come together as teams and with our support networks on a regular basis. We continue to develop a ‘new normal’ and this hybrid arrangement allows for us to be more flexible in how we provide services to children and families and an enhanced work/life balance for our Social Workers.

In March 2019, OFSTED said that our staff are positive about working in Cheshire West and Chester; they ensure that they know the children they work with well and demonstrate this when talking about them. This means that our workforce can gain more experience and knowledge to support the children and families they work with.

Strong political and senior leadership team has a wealth of experience and knowledge about children’s outcomes across the boroughs of Cheshire West and Chester. Children’s social care and the wider partnership use this understanding well to target areas for continued improvement.

You will have NVQ Level 3 or equivalent in a related area (e.g.: Children’s Social care, Health) and will need a minimum of two years’ experience of working with young people and families.

If you have any queries please don't hesitate to make contact with the Children’s Transition Team Manager Lauren Brierley lauren.brierley@cheshirewestandchester.gov.uk or the Senior Manager for Disabled Children Sarah.banks@cheshirewestandchester.gov.uk

Please note that this job is subject to a Disclosure and Barring Service (DBS) check.

To find out more information about what it is like to work for Cheshire West and Chester Council including our rewards and benefits please see www.cwcrecruitment.co.uk

No candidate will meet every single requirement - if your experience looks a little different from what we've identified and you think you can bring value to the role, we'd love to learn more about you!

Cheshire West and Chester Council are committed to equality and diversity in employment. Please see the Equality Policy for more information.

Cheshire West and Chester Council have adopted a Local Living Wage for our employees which means that all employees will receive a minimum of £10.90 per hour for all contracted hours.

For any technical enquiries please email Sourcingteam@ecwip.co.uk and quote job reference number in all correspondence.