* Are you passionate about supporting children, young people and their kinship families?
* Do you want a new challenge and opportunity within a developing service?
* Can you give kinship carers the support to develop their skills and resilience to enable them to offer safe, secure and stable care.
Look no further! We have an exciting and rewarding opportunity to join our Kinship Team as a Link Worker here at Stockton On Tees Borough Council.
This is a new and exciting opportunity to be part of the development of Stockton Borough Council's Kinship support offer.
The Kinship Team will strive to support children remaining in their family network. We recognise the positive impact that placing children in Kinship care can have on their overall wellbeing and outcomes. As a Link Worker Kinship Support you will offer direct support to kinship carers, including out of hours and on a weekend, offering advice and guidance in respect of parenting children and young people who have experienced trauma, in order to promote stability of placement. Support will include targeted pieces of work to support individual kinship carers to manage when challenges arise, contributing to assessments of need, arranging and facilitating peer support groups and events for kinship families as well as signposting to other services.
The successful candidate will be joining the Kinship Team, within the Family Placement Service and will work alongside social workers across the service. This is an exciting time to join the team as we move towards the development of a service, which will provide consistency, training and support for both foster carers and kinship carers, enabling children and young people to experience permanence and stability within their network.
We are a dedicated team, passionate about improving the lives of our children and young people and ensuring kinship carers get the support and recognition they deserve.
The successful candidate will have good knowledge of kinship care and the rewards and challenges of caring for children who have experienced trauma. They should have significant experience of working with children and families and be able to work in partnership with families during times of crisis as well as to develop and maintain positive working relationships in the longer term.
Applicants must be able to demonstrate excellent communication, relationship building and organisational skills and be able to work under their own initiative as well as part of a team.
For more detailed information about the role, please refer to the Job Description and Person Specification included in the Supporting Documents section.
Stockton-on-Tees Borough Council prides itself on being a great place to work where staff are trusted, valued and supported to make a positive contribution at work.
We offer an excellent total reward package, including:
* A competitive salary of up to £32,654
* 27 days annual leave per year rising to 32 with 5 years’ service (plus bank holidays). Ability to purchase additional leave is also available.
* Generous Pension Scheme through the LGPS with ability to pay extra and plan for retirement.
* Access to a number of other employee benefits including learning & development opportunities, a car lease scheme, discounts at high street and online retailers, an employee assistance programme and physiotherapy services
For more information about working for Stockton-on-Tees Borough Council, please visit the Careers section on our website:
https://www.stockton.gov.uk/careers
If you would like an informal discussion about the post, please contact Diana Magaya, Team Manager, Kinship Team via email at diana.magaya@stockton.gov.uk or by telephone on 01642 527862.
Please note that all communication regarding your application for this post will be sent to the email address that you have registered with North East Jobs, including your invite to interview if you are short-listed. Please check your email after the closing date for notification from ‘DONOTREPLY@NORTHEASTJOBS.ORG.UK’. All communication will also appear in the ‘My Messages’ section of your North East Jobs account. #J-18808-Ljbffr