* Category: Care - Children and Young People
* Contract type: Fixed term
* Working hours: 36 hours per week
* Posted on: 19 June 2025
* Closing date: 13 July 2025
* Location: Victoria Gate, Chobham Road, Woking, GU21 6JD
Description
The starting salary for this position is £32,512 per annum based on a 36 hour working week.
This is a 12-month fixed term contract or secondment opportunity.
We are excited to be hiring an enthusiastic and committed Youth Worker to join our highly innovative and motivated 'Child First' Youth Offer service. The 'Engage' programme looks to upstream relationship-based prevention and intervention to children and young people at the point of arrest. The Engage response seeks to involve children and young people in meaningful diversionary activities through the wider Youth Offer projects and interventions, seeking to divert them away from escalating further into the criminal justice system.
This role will be countywide but with a base location at one of our main centre hubs nearest to the successful candidate.
Rewards and Benefits
* 26 days' holiday (prorated for part time staff), rising to 28 days after 2 years' service and 30 days after 5 years' service
* An extensive Employee Assistance Programme (EAP) to support health and wellbeing
* Up to 5 days of carer's leave per year
* Paternity, adoption and dependents leave
* A generous local government salary related pension
* Lifestyle discounts including gym, travel, shopping and many more
* 2 paid volunteering days per year
* Learning and development hub where you can access a wealth of resources
About the Role
The Youth Offer Service is a targeted youth work service embedded within Surrey's Adolescent Service. We work with the most vulnerable and at-risk young people, and groups who fall into the targeted and intensive support categories of Surrey's continuum of support.
Our goal is to provide relational based youth work interventions to strengthen young people's existing plans, improve life chances and reduce escalation to more expensive and intensive statutory services, such as Youth Justice, Children's services and Mental Health services.
We deliver intervention through: timebound targeted group work, targeted community-based projects, targeted outreach programmes, emotional wellbeing drop-ins and one to one work. Youth work is delivered with a focus on identified outcomes from the referrer, and gaining accreditation (AQAs), employability skills, and developing personal, social & emotional skills to build resilience and promote re-engagement.
The Youth Offer Service has four distinct core intervention areas:
* Emotional Wellbeing and Mental Health interventions (CYP Haven Programme)
* Targeted project-based vocational skills interventions
* Targeted Group Community based interventions
* ENGAGE Police Custody intervention of High risk & vulnerable young people
As an Engage Youth Support Worker, you will proactively engage young people and deliver effective youth work, using a variety of approaches in relation to participation and targeted prevention.
The ENGAGE Team targets outreach engagement work to high-risk young people who have come into police custody with the goal of engaging them at a key reachable and teachable moment into our wider targeted interventions, and divert them away from their escalating risks.
The ENGAGE model in Surrey involves a small team in the service working alongside the multi-agency partnership meetings that take place each morning to discuss the young people that have been in police custody the day before. This meeting is called the Daily Risk Briefing. Young people are contacted within 24 hours and robust engagement attempts are made with them and their families to initiate engagement. Wider targeted project-based interventions are used to draw young people into engagement, and to establish a working relationship with a Youth Worker in our service to facilitate strengths based relational youth work.
Shortlisting Criteria
To be considered for interview for this position, your CV and personal statement will clearly evidence the following:
* Ability to proactively engage young people and deliver effective youth work in a variety of approaches in relation to participation and targeted prevention
* Ability to provide face to face support to children and their families while they are detained in police custody
* Comfortability to lone work with children and young people with the remote support of an on-call Duty Manager
* Ability to assess children and young people's needs and develop appropriate interventions
* Ability to work in partnership, developing and maintaining local networks, and engage other agencies and groups
* Proficient IT skills (including Word, Excel, PowerPoint, and Web based applications)
As a Team we actively demonstrate the following values and behaviours when working with the young people we support:
* Kindness
* Non-judgemental
* Reliability
* Ability to remain calm under pressure
* Willingness to share skills and abilities with young people
This role will require regular travel throughout the County, therefore the successful candidate will need to be both willing and able to travel as required.
Contact Us
Please contact us for any questions relating to the role. This could be to discuss flexible working requests, transferable skills, or any barriers to employment. For an informal discussion please contact Jon Twigg by e-mail at jonathan.twigg@surreycc.gov.uk
The job advert closes at 23:59 on 13/07/2025 with interviews to follow.
We look forward to receiving your application, please click on the apply online button below to submit.
An enhanced DBS 'Disclosure and Barring Service' check for regulated activity (formerly known as CRB) and the Children's and Adults' Barred List checks will be required for this role.
Local Government Reorganisation
Surrey County Council is preparing for Local Government Reorganisation which will allow us to implement the Government led policy of devolution, which is all about giving more powers to local areas.
Currently, Surrey has a two-tier council system, with 11 district and borough councils and a county council, all responsible for different services. All these councils will be reorganised into a smaller number of new unitary councils which will come into effect in April 2027. At this point, this role will be transferred, with all existing terms and conditions intact into one of the new unitary councils.
Our values are as important as our abilities and shape who we are as an organisation. Discover more about our values.
Before submitting your application, we recommend you read the job description. Our Life at Surrey handbook also provides insights of the culture at Surrey and how as a valued employee, you can help shape our Council.
Our Commitment
Surrey County Council is proud to be a Disability Confident Employer. A guaranteed interview will be offered to all disabled applicants where:
* The candidate has evidenced the minimum criteria for the role through their application
* The candidate has chosen to share that they have a disability on the application form
Our application form and onboarding process will provide an opportunity to request any reasonable adjustments for the interview and/or the role.
We want to be an inclusive and diverse employer reflecting the community we serve and particularly welcome applications from all underrepresented groups.
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