We are the difference for Children in Care and Care Leavers.
Family Coach Opportunity in Southampton
Southampton City Council, Pathways Through Care Team is a service passionate and striving to achieve the best outcomes for our children we care for. Building relationships that enable our children to feel and know that they are held in mind is important to us.
Working closely with partnership agencies to provide high challenge and high support, building strong relationships between practitioners and their families, enabling systemic and reflective work with our children and their networks alongside these strong relationships is also a priority.
This vacancy is a rare opportunity and has arisen from a focus on wanting to provide our families with enhanced support prior to considering reunification and during the reunification process. This post will be ideal for any applicant who has passion and a strength-based approach when working with children and their families. It will be an opportunity to build meaningful and influential relationships with the children and their families during a crucial and pivotal moment in their care journey. There is a strong focus on reunification for our children when it is safe and appropriate to do so and this will be a large part of the work the family coach will be an integral part of. Supporting with life story work and narratives for children will also form part of this role.
In June 2023, Ofsted saw strong evidence that: “The experiences and progress of children in care are good. Improvements to the quality of support provided to children in care have accelerated recently. Careful and successful workforce recruitment, a comprehensive strategy to improve children’s placement stability and an impressive level of meaningful engagement by senior leaders with children in care all provide a firm foundation for further improvements”.
One of our major focuses for the successful Family Coach is to ensure that we are providing stability to children and always achieving the right permanence for them. Family is important and alongside ensuring permanence whilst in our care is the ongoing focus for us to ensure that we have the right plan for our children and that we promote identity and sense of belonging wherever possible. Making strong and memorable relationships, this service also gives creative and restorative practitioners other opportunities to make the difference and to utilise their strong assessment skills in working with birth families to always consider whether the right permanence is in place for our children. There are strong reunification drivers that help support children and young people to recognise their potential and make stronger links with immediate and extended family members as well as significant others in their lives. The Family Coach plays a vital and key role in these journeys supporting and moving towards restoring permanence with birth families.
Southampton are strongly invested in development of their staff. With the support provided by the practice development team and the Principle Social worker, the services enjoys a good partnership which allows us to invest in bespoke training packages to enhance service delivery to our children.
The Service:
The Children in Care Team supports children and young people who are looked after in foster care, cared for by connected carers or family, and specialist care which includes residential or semi-independent provisions.
The service benefits from a permanent management team who have a wide range of experience from different service areas as well as a service manager who is visible and approachable. There are 3 teams within the children in care service. The Family Coach will be a member of one of these teams. We also work closely with our colleagues in the care leavers service and the UASC team who form part of our service area.
The service prides itself on having a cohesive and friendly feel who offer support to team members. Our service is child focussed and strives for each child or young person to be the best person they can be.
The Role:
The successful Family Coach will spend a good amount of their time supporting Children in Care who live in fostering, residential or semi-independent homes. The role will have a focus in their work supporting children and young people’s identity and opportunity to consider reunification home to their families. Leading up to reunification plans and significantly post reunification ensuring that the support once the child returns home is in place and meaningful building on relationships, that ensure the final goal when it is safe and appropriate to do so ending and revocation of local authority involvement. The role may also include supporting children in the understanding of why they are unable to live with their birth families. Life narratives are an important part of this role whether it is for reunification or enhanced contact plans, or just because the child needs to understand more.
Who are we looking for?
We are looking for a practitioner who is reflective and assured in their practice and ideally would have had some experience of direct work with children in care.
You will build relationships through regular visits. You will nurture and develop meaningful relationships with children and their families; gain and interpret their wishes, and advocate and support them to reach their full potential.
We want to continually improve and show our children that we are aspirational for them and what they can achieve in their relationships, communities, education, training, and life’s adventures.
The work is varied and challenging, and there is a strong team approach ensuring good support for the successful applicant.
Life story work, the narrative of the child and ensuring we work from a strengthening families base and of equal measure being trauma informed in our support to our children is a necessity.
You will have experience of working with children and families and have formal qualifications in related courses.
Please refer to the attached job description for the essential and desirable elements to apply for these roles.
Our Location:
You will be based within Southampton city centre in the Civic Centre, a historical building within easy reach of a range of colleagues also based in the building. Some flexible/remote/home working is available. Some of our children are placed outside of the city and therefore travel will be part of this role to enable children placed outside of Southampton to experience the same support as those placed within the city.
Our Organisation:
Southampton City Council is a unitary authority, as such you will have access to responsive leadership which is supportive at all management levels.
We are committed to the development of all our staff, whilst working in a highly supportive and highly challenging culture. All of which is at the ethos of our ambition to become a child friendly city.
Contact details for informal discussion:
For further information and details regarding the position please contact Service Manager Ellie Steel [email protected]; or Team Manager Ruth Small, [email protected] or Stacey Wooldridge at [email protected] and either one of the managers will be able to respond to your email and arrange a call if needed.
What we can offer you:
Salary: The salary band for this role is £37,280 - £40,778. The starting salary is £37,280 with annual progression through the salary bands.
Here at SCC we have a range of different benefits, a few examples can be found below.
- As Ofsted has stated in our inspection in June 2023 where we achieved a Good grading: ‘Practitioners are supported by energetic and responsive frontline managers who maintain clear, confident and close oversight of children’s progress’. You will be provided with regular good quality 1-1 case and personal supervision that align to restorative principles.
- Opportunities to engage in work-based activities well- being and be recognised for the work that you do through our employment awards and recognition schemes
- Excellent local government pension with 15.2% employer contribution
- Death in service benefit of x3 salary, and optional salary sacrifice shared cost AVC (additional voluntary contribution)
- Generous holiday 25–31 days, based on role and service
- Flexible working options (role-dependent)
- Family-friendly policies - Maternity, Paternity, Adoption, Shared/Unpaid Parental Leave, Time off for Dependents
- Training and development, including coaching and mentoring
- Health and wellbeing support - Employee Assistance Programme, Menopause Pledge, Mental Health First Aiders and access to a variety of staff networks
- Veteran-friendly employer with the Armed Forces Covenant
- Retail discounts and savings through the Southampton City Council benefits platform
- Discounted memberships at local sports and fitness centres
- Sustainable travel benefits - low emission car scheme, cycle to work, season ticket loans
- Employee volunteering scheme with 2 paid days leave to volunteer
- Laptop and mobile phone will be provided to support with work.
- Robust induction period and personal development plan that meets your training and development needs. You will have membership to Research in Practice as well as access to an internal resource library.
- Opportunities are also offered to flexible working arrangements. The 9 day fortnight is offered.
- Flexible working and travel outside of the council will be part of the job requirements.
For further information on our benefits package please visit: Employee benefits (southampton.gov.uk)
Interview Information:
Please note that interviews are scheduled for Monday 13th and Tuesday 14th July 2026.
Recruitment contact details:
Email: [email protected]
Tel: 023 8083 4033
For more information about SCC please visit Southampton City Council
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