Job description
Position: Family support worker
Contract type: Full time, Part time and 0 hour contracts available
Pay rate: £12.50 per hour
Working hours
Varying shift patterns to meet the requirements of the service
Commitment of 3 days a week (minimum)
About the Role
Working at The Mummy hub organisation (TMHO) as a family support worker, you will offer practical help and emotional support to families specifically mothers, experiencing short or long-term difficulties.
The focus of your role is to provide support to vulnerable mothers, empowering them to address various challenges, reducing problems and risks consequently helping to make sure that children can remain in their care.
As a Family support worker, you will support these mothers with a range of social and personal issues or specialise in a particular area such as domestic abuse, trauma, bereavement, unemployment or homelessness.
Responsibilities
Mother are referred to The Mummy Hub organisation by their allocated social worker within the local authority of their borough, and you may work together to assess and support the service users. Your role will vary depending on the needs of the family that you are supporting.
Within The Mummy Hub Organisation we aim to have a multidisciplinary service therefore ensuring each member of staff possesses skills specific to an area of need.
The challenges faced by residents placed at The Mummy Hub Organisation will mainly consist of parenting skills however others may include.
- Anti-social behaviour and criminal activity, such as a parent in prison
- Behaviour and social interaction
- Bereavement and caring responsibilities
- Bullying
- Domestic violence and abuse
- Drug and alcohol addiction
- Education and learning
- Finance and debt
- Housing and homelessness
- Language barriers
- Marital discord, separation, and divorce, including supervising care orders
- physical and mental health issues, disabilities and learning difficulties.
As a family support worker with TMHO, you will be expected to:
- Attend service users’ homes to provide the required support within the community.
- Work with colleagues, health and social care professionals and multi-agency networks to evaluate caseload needs and the progress that has been made
- Adhere to professional practice standards and legislation, including confidentiality, safeguarding, equality, diversity, and inclusion policies
- Ensure you are up to date on your knowledge of local service provision for appropriate signposting and referrals
- Manage your own workload, administration, and diary commitments. Ensuring that all communication logs are completed at the end of your shift and shared with the team in a timely fashion ensuring that consistent communication is maintained.
- Assess parenting skills and help people to build physical and emotional caring abilities through a range of practical activities delivered during direct link sessions.
- Where appropriate, support residents with learning and development.
- Enhance parents' understanding of different education and play strategies that will stimulate and meet their child/children’s needs.
- Use direct link sessions to provide practical home management and budgeting advice to parents to ensure that should they return to independent living they are equipped with both basic and developed skills.
- Using expertise, coach, mentor and motivate families to understand the benefits of relevant activities.
- Maintain accurate and up-to-date administration and caseload records, including reports of all interactions, incidents and accidents.
- Provide support with a family during a crisis, such as a parent being in hospital
- Attend court sessions where appropriate, for example in cases of child protection proceedings.
What to expect
Your employment at present is community based and will be focused within the environment of the service user E.g., the service users living accommodation and local services.
The role of a family support worker can be emotionally draining as you are required to work with those experiencing sensitive and traumatic situations which can include, domestic violence, bereavement and neglect.
On occasion It can also be challenging and involve confrontation, particularly if a service user is not fully understanding of the need for TMHO involvement. In some cases, the service user may not be ready to engage with you, and therefore not all interactions will have a positive outcome. However, enabling service users to overcome wide-ranging challenges and difficult situations means that your role is extremely varied and highly rewarding.
You will work in a multidisciplinary team or partnership of support agencies, in a variety of settings including, families' homes, schools, colleges, nurseries, youth centres, probation offices, contact centres, local courts, and premises of voluntary and charitable organisations.
Possession of a full UK driving licence, your own vehicle and business insurance to visit different locations within your day-to-day role is mandatory however visits can also be completed via the use of public transport.
Qualifications
Although entry routes into family support worker roles are varied, you'll usually need a combination of relevant experience and qualifications.
Minimum of a level 3 qualification in one of the following:
- Advice and guidance
- Childcare
- Community work
- Counselling
- Education
- Health
- Social care
- Youth work.
Lived experience is also considered as a skill set, therefore where appropriate this will be discussed.
Employers will also usually expect experience and knowledge of safeguarding practices and procedures.
While you don't have to be a graduate to become a family support worker, the following degree subjects can lead to this career:
- Childhood studies
- Education
- Psychology
- Social work
- Youth and community work.
To work with children, young people and vulnerable groups, you will need to undergo an enhanced Disclosure and Barring Service (DBS) check.
Skills
As a Family support worker, you will need to show:
- Good communication and listening skills
- The ability to build and maintain rapport with adults and children
- Calmness under pressure and when dealing with challenging or confrontational behaviour
- flexibility and adaptability
- Ability to maintain professional boundaries
- A good understanding of the challenges faced by the families you help
- Organisation and problem-solving skills
- Resilience and the ability to cope with emotionally draining and traumatic situations
- Commitment to making a positive difference to the lives of service users
- A positive, non-judgemental, empathic, and sensitive approach
- Effective teamwork skills, as you will often be acting within a multidisciplinary service or multi-agency network
- Competent IT skills to record and maintain accurate data
- The ability to maintain expert knowledge of local services and provision.
- You may also need relevant language skills depending on the service users and communities you support.
Work experience
As a family support worker at TMHO you will require relevant work experience with children, young people, and their families. This can be either in a paid or voluntary capacity.
Experience in mentoring, advisory work, coaching, problem-solving and supporting children and adults is also helpful when applying for a post.
Job Types: Full-time, Part-time, Permanent
Pay: Up to £12.50 per hour
Schedule:
- 12 hour shift
- Day shift
- Monday to Friday
- Night shift
- Weekend availability
Ability to commute/relocate:
- London, Greater London: reliably commute or plan to relocate before starting work (required)
Application question(s):
- The vacancy is now focusing on recruiting for Nights and Weekends, are you able to commit to these shift patterns?
Education:
Experience:
- Health and social care: 3 years (required)
Licence/Certification:
- NVQ Level 3 Health & Social Care (required)
- Driving Licence (preferred)
Work authorisation:
- United Kingdom (required)
Shift availability:
- Day shift (preferred)
- Night shift (required)
- Overnight shift (required)
Willingness to travel:
Work Location: In person
