Date: 24 Jun 2026
Location: Bridgwater, GB, TA6 3AR
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Company: Somerset Council
Closing date: 13/07/2026
Salary: Grade 10, Ranging from £37,280 to - £41,771 per annum
Location: Bridgwater
Role summary
The Professional Practitioner is a key role dedicated to supporting families in overcoming challenges and improving their overall wellbeing. This role involves providing direct intervention services, developing individualised support plans, and working collaboratively with other professionals to ensure comprehensive care. The practitioner will engage with families to address issues such as parenting, family dynamics, and crisis management, aiming to foster a safe and nurturing environment for all family members.
What you’ll do - key responsibilities
Use appropriate techniques and best practice to make robust ongoing holistic, professional assessments of allocated children, young people, and their families/carers to reflect individual circumstances including assessment of risk of harm and risk of serious harm to and from the child together with their vulnerability, to ensure intervention with children and young people is as effective as possible. Deliver a range of interventions and activities where required which are underpinned by evidence-based practice.
Keep accurate and timely records and to provide information, written assessments, reports, or other document to support multi agency partnership working to enable decision making in respect of service users.
Ensure that Family Intervention Team good practice reviews, dip samples, audits and evaluations are conducted in line with the quality assurance process with a view to constantly reviewing and developing team and individual practice.
Work with a range of multi-agency partners to ensure meaningful intervention, safeguarding and protection of children and young people with additional and/or complex needs and to maximise the effectiveness of available resources through provision of expertise on a needs-led, intensive basis, which does not build in reliance upon services but encourages and builds sustainability and family self-reliance.
Communicate with and influence the decision making and resource provision of partner professionals/agencies as well as seeking to influence the behaviour of service users and their families.
Establish appropriate professional relationships with service users, their families, carers, other professionals, and agencies to enable effective partnerships in the provision of services. Maintain a child centred approach focussing on the need to manage risk of harm, reduce vulnerabilities and work towards sustainable positive change where families become self-sustaining and there is a reduced demand on services in that family.
Build upon existing skills, knowledge and practice with research and training to develop individual skills and work with Senior Professional Team Leaders to appraise new approaches and to embed improvements in service provision and delivery. As part of this, act as a Family Intervention Team Point of Knowledge expert for a specific/thematic area of work such as Physical Health, Emotional Health and Wellbeing, Domestic Abuse, Education Training and Employment, Adolescent Parenting, or any other area relevant to FIT work/intervention.
Alongside the Senior Professional Team Leader contribute to the development of specific child and adolescent programmes of work such as DDP informed interventions, Theraplay and Non-Violent Resistance parenting amongst others. Ensure staff are trained and appraised in the use of programmes and that a regular cohort of staff receive appropriate training and opportunities to roll out new skills and knowledge learned.
Alongside the Senior Professional Team Leader, supervise a team of Family Intervention Workers (FIWs) to ensure that services are delivered to children, young people, and their families/carers in accordance with best practice and local policy and protocols. Lead, manage and review the quality of work delivered by FIWs under their supervision and within the team generally and support the Senior Professional Team Leader in any sickness, capability, or disciplinary processes, as necessary.
Act as a case holder and beacon of good practice for the most complex cases. Provide information, advice, and support to FIWs on cases held by them, and where indicated, conduct joint visits in a supervisory capacity to develop the skills, experiences, and knowledge of FIWs.
Act as a lead worker on the development and roll out of the Rapid Response out-of-hours service, including on call and call out duties.
What we’re looking for – knowledge, experience & skills
Essential
Educated to Degree level or equivalent qualification such as NVQ Level 6 in a relevant thematic area (such as social work, probation, teaching, psychotherapy, psychology, youth work, health professions, education, domestic abuse, family work or significant experience working with families with multiple and complex needs whilst maintaining outcomes focus.
Evidence of a commitment to on-going professional development in their specialist field and to the principles of evidenced based practice.
Good understanding and ability to develop and implement effective performance management and quality assurance frameworks.
Knowledge and understanding of implementing equality and diversity in service delivery.
An understanding and commitment to effective customer and community engagement leading to service redesign and change management.
Good understanding of family functioning in relation to adolescent development, attachment theory and conflict resolution practices.
Demonstrable experience of partnership working with other agencies and professional colleagues
Strong evidence of undertaking holistic assessment of children, young people and family and needs, to help identify how outcomes can be achieved, ensuring that assessments and intervention plans are SMART and, fully reflect the child/young person and family views and aspirations.
Evidence of applying a solution focussed approach and proving practical advice and support to families, children, and young people to enable them to achieve and sustain positive outcomes.
Confidence in making appropriate decisions about case directions and actions to be taken to move the case forwards on a day-to-day basis.
Evidence of developing creative approaches in family work and thinking ‘outside the box.’
Ability to evidence key staff supervisory skills including reflective and reflexive supervision, staff development and where necessary adherence to capability / disciplinary process under the direction of line management.
Ability to work independently and act with appropriate autonomy and to use supervision appropriately.
Have the ability to recognise when key decision regarding risk / concerns needs to be discussed / shared with a supervisor or manager.
Ability to speak fluent English as stated in Part 7 of the Immigration Act (2016).
Ability to share extensive generic knowledge around working in families with children and young people with multiple and complex needs. Through work with colleagues and partners provide support in case discussions and mentor.
Desirable
Understanding of budgetary restraints and ability to find ‘work around’ solutions
Ability to share extensive generic knowledge around working in families with children and young people with multiple and complex needs. Through work with colleagues and partners provide support in case discussions and mentor.
Relevant Level 4 qualification
Additional Information
Permanent, 37 Hour position.
Flexible working available, using a hybrid model
30 day’s annual leave (additional to bank holidays)
This role requires access to a vehicle with business insurance as some of your time will be spent in the community completing direct interventions with children, young people and families.
Please note that part of the role of Professional Practitioner is a supervisory role for our out of hours and weekend duty service. This requires rota’d shifts of ‘Lates’ (2pm -10pm) and ‘earlies’ (7am – 3pm) alternating every 6 weeks, including weekends
Regretfully, we are unable to offer sponsorship for this role. We are only able to proceed with candidates who already have the right to work in the UK without the need for visa sponsorship
For an informal chat about the role, please contact: Carys Quinn, Operations Manager Prevention West at
[email protected]
Interviews are scheduled for 23rd July 2026
1055/SR
