Personal Advisor

Bexley is an outer London Borough with the best of both worlds, located between the hustle and bustle of London and the Garden of England, Kent. Within the borough we have award winning parks, open spaces and listed heritage sites.

Leaving Care team which is part of Bexley’s Looked After Children and Permanence Service.

The leaving care team works with young people aged 18-25 who were previously in care. Following ongoing assessments, the team provides information, advice, guidance and support to enable young people to make a successful transition into adulthood.

The London Borough of Bexley is looking for a committed and self-motivated person to provide support and advice to Care Leavers aged 18-25 as they make the transition from care to independence.

You will work within the Leaving Care team which is part of Bexley’s Looked After Children and Permanence Service.

You will hold a case load of care leavers providing 1:1 support, and undertake the role of Personal Advisor as described in the Children (Leaving Care) Act 2000 and the new Children and Social Work Act 2017. This includes reviewing and updating the Pathways Plan on a 6 monthly basis. The job is based in the Council’s Civic Offices, Bexleyheath but will involve meetings in education and training settings.

Please refer to the Job Description attached for more information.

We will offer you in return a package that includes a competitive salary, an excellent pension scheme and generous annual leave plus bank holidays. For more information on the benefits package on offer please refer to the Candidate Information document attached.

We reserve the right to close adverts earlier than the closing date.

You will have experience of working with young people in a professional capacity and have an understanding of the challenges facing care leavers as they make the transition to independence.  You will also have enthusiasm and creativity in engaging with young people.

For the full list of essential and desirable criteria for this role then please refer to the Person Specification within the Job Description attached.

Appointment to this post will be subject to the outcome of an Enhanced Disclosure obtained through the Disclosure and Barring Service (DBS)

This authority is committed to safeguarding and promoting the welfare of children and young people and vulnerable adults and expects all staff and volunteers to share this commitment.

This post is considered by the authority to be a customer-facing position; as such it falls within scope of the Code of Practice on English language requirement for public sector workers. The council therefore has a statutory duty under Part 7 of the Immigration Act 2016 to ensure that post holders have a command of spoken English sufficient for the effective performance of the job requirements. The appropriate standards are set out in the JD/Person Specification. These will be applied during the recruitment/selection and probationary stages.

Use the ‘Apply for vacancy’ button.

Please note that the system has a one-hour time limit. We would advise you to prepare your answers separately and then copy and paste into the online form once finalised and have your CV and/or Supporting statement ready to upload.

If any mandatory fields are missing, a pop-up box will appear at the top of the page advising which sections require completion. Please check your Junk email for any correspondence.

Additional Information

As a disability confident employer Bexley welcomes applications from people with all disabilities, including hidden disabilities and mental health conditions. We will interview any disabled applicant who meets the minimum criteria. If you require reasonable adjustments to be made to any part of the recruitment process due to your disability, please contact us on recruitment@bexley.gov.uk

This role may be available as a development opportunity through secondment for the Council’s existing employees.  The Council’s Secondment Scheme can be found here. If this option is of interest, please contact the recruiting manager.