Portage Home Visitor

Hackney Education provides a range of services to support the education of children, young people and adults in our inner London borough. Hackney is one of the UK’s highest performing local authorities, serving one of London’s best places to live and work. Within our diverse borough we serve a wide range of children and young people. We have a particular focus on supporting less advantaged families: Hackney figures in the 10% most deprived boroughs in England on a number of measures.

Hackney Education’s key priority is to improve the life chances of every child, young person and learner: making Hackney the most forward looking education system in the UK, where schools, settings and partners provide an exciting environment which ensures inclusion and success for everyone. We see our borough as being one of the best places in the country for young people to grow, learn, develop and achieve – and one of the best places for colleagues to work and thrive in our education system.

Job titlePortage Home Visitor

Salary SO2, £40,005 to £41,286

Terms and Conditions Full-Time, Permanent

Portage is a play-based developmental and educational resource for children 0-5yrs and their parents/carers, and is part of the SEND pre-school package on offer to Hackney families.

With training and after joint visits with partner education and health professionals, current Portage Home Visitors are able to work collaboratively with therapists and help implement many therapies with skill and understanding.

Portage support is highly valued by parents and professionals alike, and highly sought after.

The service runs a rolling program of home visits in person mostly but sometimesvirtually to meet family needsin order to provide as many parents and children with support as possible. Initially, each family is offered a 6-8 week block of weekly or fortnightly visits. This can be extended to 12 weeks blocks or more if necessary and is followed by a break of about 4-8 weeks, after which a further block of visits is agreed. However, parents may contact the service/their allocated Portage Home Visitor at any time and one-off visits can be arranged at short notice. The same Portage worker stays with the family throughout. Enquiries and evaluations reveal that this continuity is highly valued by parents, who often have to contend with a high turnover of professionals in other disciplines.

Hackney Portage Service is a team as supportive of its individual members as it is of the Hackney families it serves. A Portage Home Visitor position has become available due to the retirement of a longstanding team member.

Interested?

Please do contact Fiona Jones - Portage Senior/Team Leader with any queries

Email fiona.jones@hackney.gov.uk Tel 07798 882624

Please apply via our website: https://education.hackney.gov.uk/jobs/hlt

Closing date: 22:59, Sunday 4^th February 2024

Interviews: 7^th February 2024

Hackney Education is committed to safeguarding and promoting the welfare of children and young people. We expect all staff to share this commitment. As this role involves regulated activity, the successful applicant will be required to undertake an enhanced DBS check and additional pre-employment checks in line with Keeping Children Safe in Education statutory guidance.

This post is exempt from the Rehabilitation of Offenders Act 1974 and the amendments to the Exceptions Order 1975, 2013 and 2020.

We are also working towards our vision, which is to be a place for everyone; where residents and staff can be proud; a place that celebrates diversity and where everyone can feel valued, included and involved. In order to achieve this, we look for people who are: Proud; Ambitious; Pioneering; Open; Proactive; Inclusive.

Hackney Council works to eradicate discrimination on the basis of race, religion, gender, gender identity, sexual orientation, disability, pregnancy and maternity, age and marital status. We also recognise that people can be disadvantaged by their social and economic circumstances, so we will also work to eliminate discrimination and disadvantage caused by social class. We also welcome those interested in flexible working. We particularly welcome applications from disabled people and people from a black and global majority background as these groups are currently under represented in our workforce.