Job overview
We are looking to recruit a dedicated and compassionate Youth Worker for Children, Young People and Families who shares our commitment to delivering consistently outstanding care and exemplary service to patients and their families
This is a full-time role, primarily Monday to Friday, with occasional evening, weekend, and community-based work. We welcome applications from individuals with experience in youth work within the NHS, voluntary organisations, or community services.
In this role, you will support children and young people with both short-term health needs and long-term conditions, including diabetes, epilepsy, ADHD, and autism. Your work will focus on supporting the social and emotional wellbeing of children and young people across Children’s Services, Adult Services, and community settings.
You will provide holistic support, advice, and guidance to children and young people accessing Children’s Services, including those preparing for transition into adult healthcare services. Support will be delivered through one-to-one sessions, group work, peer support activities, and youth engagement programmes.
We are looking for someone who is motivated, approachable, and able to work independently using their own initiative. You will need to be responsive to the individual needs of young people and confident working within a health-based environment.
Our core values — Include, Respect, and Improve — are at the center of everything we do. We encourage all applicants to demonstrate and embrace these values throughout the recruitment process and in their everyday work with us.
Main duties of the job
Communicate effectively with CYP and their families/carers. Use a compassionate, individual, and inclusive approach to communication with children and young people who may have social and communication difficulties, / special educational and learning needs, learning disability and autism.
To provide holistic support for the young person to meet their individual needs. Acting as an advocate to CYP between multiple agencies and services, internal and external to ENHTT including both physical and mental health services and education and social services. This requires good communication skills, active listening skills and to be empathetic towards the CYP’s needs.
Assess the needs of CYP to correctly plan and deliver targeted programmes for example for health-related conditions, fitness, smoking, drugs, gangs, violence, relationships and bullying etc.
Work in partnership with families and other key people in the CYP’s life, as well as with professionals from other organisations involved with CYP such as social care, physical and mental health, police, education, youth offending teams and local authorities, in order to build a strong support network
Establish boundaries and challenge inappropriate behaviour.
Working for our organisation
At East and North Hertfordshire Teaching NHS Trust, we are proud of the range of general and specialist services we provide and our 6,000 or so dedicated staff ensure our patients get the best care. Our ability to be flexible and innovative in the way in which we work and deliver our services to our catchment has never been more important than it is now.
We run the following hospitals:
* The Lister Hospital, Stevenage
* New Queen Elizabeth II (New QEII), Welwyn Garden City
* Hertford County, Hertford
* Mount Vernon Cancer Centre (MVCC), Northwood
We have ambitious plans to become an outstanding, patient-led Trust where dedicated staff provide high-quality, compassionate care to our patients. We continue to undergo significant transformation and our staff and patients are at the heart of delivering this ambitious agenda.
We are committed to a positive work life balance for our employees. This means that any employee is entitled to seek to work flexible working patterns and we are committed to listen and consider all requests. Such requests, of course, have to be made and considered formally, and will need to be balanced against service needs, but our starting point will always be to find ways to support making them happen.
Detailed job description and main responsibilities
Please see the attached Job Description and Person Specification applicant pack for further detailed information regarding this role.
Person specification
Qualifications / Training
Essential criteria
* Professional qualifications – JNC registered – Youth Worker Qualification
* General training qualifications
* On-going evidence of CPD
Desirable criteria
* Health Care or psychology related courses
Previous Experience
Essential criteria
* Work experience
* Technical experience
* Previous level of responsibility
* Care in Health, Social, Education or Voluntary setting with Children and young people.
* Experience of working with patients with long term conditions
Desirable criteria
* Experience of working with people with emotional difficulties and learning difficulties (paid or voluntary)
* Experience of youth work
Skills
Essential criteria
* Specific skills required, e.g. Leadership, Organisational, Communication, Other
* Ability to create and maintain good relationships with children and famil
* Ability to recognise own limitations, use own initiative and recognize when to escalate to senior staff
* Good Team worker
* Ability to work in a non-judgmental manner
* Ability to reflect on practice
* Self-aware and committed to continue personal development. Able to accept and respond positively to feedback from clinical supervision
Other Requirements
Essential criteria
* Awareness of child protection issues. Awareness of confidentiality
* An awareness of the Best Practice Tariff for children and Young People (up to 19th birthday) with diabetes
* Flexible to meet needs of service
* Ability to travel and work across sites if required
* Motivated
* Ability to travel independently in accordance with Trust policies and service need.
Desirable criteria
* Basic understanding of how health conditions can affect the family
* An understanding of the application of the principles of youth work to health care.