About the Team: The Family Adolescent Support Team (FAST) is a multi‑agency service specialising in supporting children and young people aged 11 who are at risk of harm outside the home. The team brings together Social Workers, Family Practitioners, Family Support Workers, a Youth Worker, Homelessness Prevention Worker, Compass Worker, Education Support Worker, a Transitions Social Worker, an NRM Coordinator, and importantly, a dedicated team of Missing Children Practitioners who play a central role in our contextual safeguarding approach. Our Missing Children Practitioners lead the countywide response to children and young people who go missing from home, care, or education. They provide Return Conversations when a young person is found, working sensitively to understand the push and pull factors influencing missing episodes. Alongside this, they deliver targeted, relationship‑based interventions designed to reduce the frequency and severity of missing incidents. Their work is integral to identifying hidden risks linked to exploitation, criminality, peer influence, or other extra‑familial contexts where harm occurs. FAST is co‑located with the Police, Barnardo’s, and Youth Justice across three sites—Nuneaton Justice Centre (North), Bloxham Young People’s Centre (East), and Leamington Justice Centre (South). This co‑location ensures strong communication, timely information‑sharing, and a coordinated safeguarding response, which is especially critical for missing children where risks can escalate quickly. The team operates within a contextual safeguarding framework, taking a holistic view of young people’s lives but assessing and responding to the environments in which they spend their time. Our Missing Children Practitioners use this framework to explore patterns, contexts, and locations linked to missing behaviour, applying a ‘context weighting’ approach that helps identify the environments of greatest concern and informs plans to increase safety. FAST supports young people experiencing various extra‑familial risks, including exploitation, peer‑on‑peer harm, gang involvement, harmful online contact, and radicalisation. The Missing Children Practitioners often act as the first point of contact for identifying these risks, with themes emerging directly from Return Conversations, mapping work, and direct practice with young people. FAST also supports 16/17‑year‑olds who present as homeless under the Joint Housing Protocol, and young people experiencing significant mental health challenges that require children’s social care involvement. In all these areas, the Missing Children team plays a key role in understanding patterns of absence, vulnerability, and risk when a young person disengages, absconds, or disconnects from education or services. Children are referred into FAST through the integrated front door (Family Connect from March 2025). The team completes a Family Help Assessment within 10 days, taking a whole‑family approach to understanding needs and formulating support plans. Where missing episodes affect siblings or wider family dynamics, practitioners—including the Missing Children team—extend support appropriately. Alongside Warwickshire’s Relational Practice Framework, FAST practitioners are trained in solution‑focused brief therapy, ARC (a trauma‑informed model), motivational interviewing, and mediation. These approaches underpin the work of Missing Children Practitioners, supporting them to build trust, reduce shame, and increase young people’s sense of safety and connection. Most FAST work takes place under the Child in Need statutory framework, where parents and carers are partners in safeguarding. The Missing Children team works collaboratively with families, schools, carers, and partner agencies to improve safety, using a combination of disruption activity, safety planning, and direct intervention. Overall, the Missing Children Practitioners are a vital part of FAST’s strategy to understand and reduce extra‑familial harm. Through consistent engagement, trauma‑informed practice, and a strong multi‑agency approach, they help young people stay safer and more connected to protective networks. Now is an exciting time to be part of our team as Warwickshire begins to embed our Families First teams who support the young people in our County. Our approach is about locality working, multi disciplinary and multi agency teams that support the whole family. Building strong partnerships with local services, Health, Police and Education. If you want to build strong relationships and connections with families, join Warwickshire’s Children and Families service. Click here to find out more about Warwickshire County Council’s Children and Families Service. Our Offer to you includes: Supportive managers who provide recognition and a robust supervision policy focussed on wellbeing and workload. A Volunteering & Wellbeing Day in addition to generous annual leave and an additional day of winter leave in December. We also offer a Refer a Friend package for some roles. Terms and Conditions apply About the Role: We are recruiting for the role of Missing Children Practitioner [base to be confirmed] in the Family Adolescent Support Team Completing Return Conversations with children who have been missing High pressured role, competing demands and targets to meet – despite this work life balance is very achievable and flexible working is promoted Assigned to young people to deliver bespoke packages of direct work Inter professional working, attendance at multi agency meetings Trauma informed, restorative work with a focus on safety planning and missing prevention SALARY NJC Grade I – starting salary is £33,699 Click here to download our Why work for Us Brochure Key Requirements: This is a County Wide role and will include travel to our Children in Care placed out of County If you want to build strong relationships and connections with families, join Warwickshire’s Children and Families service. For further information please see the Job Description and Person Specification below; Missing Children's Practitioner Working for Warwickshire – This is the difference you make: Warwickshire County Council is a place where everyone feels valued, included, safe, supported, and welcome. Our people are at the heart of this vision, could you be one of them! At Warwickshire County Council we are committed to ensuring Warwickshire’s economy is vibrant and supported by the right jobs, training, skills and infrastructure. Our people vision for Warwickshire County Council is a great place to work where diverse and talented people are enabled to be their best. Your future matters to us, we provide a generous pension scheme which includes an employer contribution rate of typically around 19 percent per month, to help support your financial security during retirement. The scheme also offers a valuable package of benefits for members and their dependants. To find out more please visit: Warwickshire Pension Fund homepage – Warwickshire Pension Fund. The benefits we offer include agile working, a valuable part of the pay and reward package for employees working in local government, generous annual leave entitlement, plus bank holidays and an additional day at Christmas, and access to Vivup benefits and discounts platform. Click here to view the benefits at Warwickshire County Council. Additional Information: Warwickshire County Council are committed to safeguarding and promoting the welfare of children, young people and adults. Please be advised successful applicants will be subject to a range of pre-engagement checks, including a relevant Disclosure and Barring Service check (DBS). In accordance with the DBS code of practice and our own policy, should an individual have a declared criminal offence an individual assessment will be completed. Warwickshire County Council adheres to the Rehabilitation of Offenders Act 1974. The Fluency Duty is outlined in the Code of Practice on the English language requirements for public sector workers. The Fluency Duty for this role is Required. You must be able to speak and provide advice in accurate spoken English to the public. This role requires employees to undergo Non-Police Personnel Vetting (NPPV). This process ensures that individuals who are not police staff but have physical or remote access to police premises, information, intelligence, financial, or operational assets are assessed for their reliability and integrity. This assessment determines their suitability for clearance to work within police premises. To discuss the role please contact Judith Francis, judithfrancis@warwickshire.gov.uk Closing Date: 16th March 2026 Interview Date: 23rd March 2026 Should you require application forms in an alternative format / language or any adjustments to be made throughout the application process or upon appointment, please contact hrandpayroll@warwickshire.gov.uk and we will make every effort to meet your specific requirements. Warwickshire County Council is committed to equality of opportunity for all employees and is keen to address areas of under representation in its workforce. See more