Are you an experienced practitioner looking for high autonomy and a meaningful impact? If you're passionate about making decisions and supporting families, this is the perfect opportunity for you. The Family Support and Advice Line is a telephone-based service with all requests for support being encouraged to call to speak directly to our practitioners to discuss their concerns. This allows the practitioner the opportunity to ask key questions about the needs, risks and strengths within families and then agreeing together who is best placed to meet the needs of a child. Thus, ensuring the right service is offered at the right time, first time. Why join us? flexibility: Split your time between our office in Wareham and working from home. supportive environment: thrive in a team known for its collaborative and positive culture professional growth: opportunities to grow both professionally and personally in a nurturing environment wellbeing support: access to talking therapies, a network of Mental Health Champions, and workshops by our Employee Wellbeing Team What You Will Be Doing The Family Support and Advice Line is centrally based in Wareham and undertakes 'front door' activities for Dorset's Children’s Services. The post holder will be required to work 22 hours over 4 days within Dorset Council core hours of 8:40 to 17:20, 39 weeks a year in school term time. Predominately office based, answering calls and taking new requests for family support, supporting Social Worker and Family Worker colleagues to manage the day-to-day processes of the service. Family Support and Advice Line Advisers take calls from partners, members of the public and families and analyse information to inform decision making for children and their families, with a whole family approach when considering the needs or risk for children, progressing requests for support in line with the Dorset's Continuum of Need. Family Support and Advice Line Advisers work closely alongside Consultant Social Worker and Family Worker colleagues in a one team culture to ensure children and families receive the right support at the right time, first time. About you We are looking for highly motivated and child focused practitioner who works well in a team environment. The successful applicant will need to have excellent communication skills, be able to demonstrate the ability to reflect and learn from practice have strong analytical skills and be able to accurately record information. Family Support and Advice Line Advisers need to be knowledgeable about and able to keep up to date with the Dorset Council Family Help offer and what communities and our voluntary sector can offer families. This will include the SEND Local offer. A key skill will be to understand the continuum of need, and support partner agencies to understand their role in offering Family Help and identifying when further targeted support is required from within the Local Authority. Further Information This is a 39 weeks a year, Term-Time only position. For an informal discussion about this post, please contact Mandy Woodham Team Manager 01305 224067 This post involves working with children and/or vulnerable adults and/or having access to significant information about them. It will be subject to a Disclosure and Barring Service check. See our policy on the employment of ex-offenders. Term time only We base the pro-rata salary on: the number of hours the number of weeks worked paid annual leave entitlement for an employee under 5 years’ service In the first year of service this salary may need to be adjusted to ensure you are paid accurately to reflect your holiday entitlement. A similar adjustment may be made at the point your employment ends to ensure that you are paid accurately for the number of days worked in any academic year. The ability to converse at ease with customers and provide advice in accurate spoken English is essential for the post. There is an enhanced DBS requirement for the post. About Us We’re passionate about making Dorset a great place to live, work and visit. Working for us should be no exception. At Dorset Council we: provide more than 450 services to over 300,000 residents have ambitious aspirations are excited about our future care about Dorset and all the people who live here know that all roles make a difference and that our employees are key to our success You will: have access to a range of employee benefits be part of an organisation that supports each other to grow and succeed have access to range of training opportunities which will help with your personal development and career progression We are challenging ourselves to become a more diverse and inclusive organisation. We recognise that recruitment and inclusion of individuals with diverse skills, perspectives and backgrounds will bring real strength to the council and our communities. We have a commitment to equality and welcome applications from everyone. We are proud to be a Disability Confident Employer. We offer an interview to everyone who declares a disability and meets the essential criteria for the role. We are keen to make our interviews accessible. Let us know on your job application if you have a disability and need any reasonable adjustments. This role is UK based and we will need to establish your Right to Work as part of the appointment process. We use generic job descriptions and person specifications. This means the job title on any attachments may differ from the job title in the advert. We may provide specific information in a context statement if relevant. Find out more about how to apply .