Starting salary : £44,579 Job Level: Level 4, Zone 1 Location: 5 Pancras Square, London N1C 4AG Contract type: Secondment/ Fixed Term 12 Months Closing date: Tuesday 28th January 2025 Interviews to be held: Early February 2025 About Camden Camden is changing on the inside to make life better for everyone. Our residents and communities are at the heart of everything we do. We’re home to the most important conversations happening today and we’re making radical social change a reality, so that nobody gets left behind. Here’s where you can help decide a better future for us all. About the role This is an opportunity for an individual full of passion for participation to join our Family Group Conference and Participation Unit. Your goal in this role will be to make sure Camden parents, carers and family members can participate meaningfully in Camden services, and that their rights are championed. You will lead work to increase opportunities for parents, carers and family members to participate in service design, development and feedback across Children and Learning and beyond. You will run bespoke participation projects and programmes yourself, and provide support, advice and guidance to colleagues on how to empower and promote participation and collaboration within their services, including making full use of the ‘Working with Parents’ principles in statutory guidance Working Together to Safeguard Children. You will devise and implement quality assurance methods to demonstrate the impact of participation, and to make sure it is meaningful and valuable. You will work in a range of areas across the Local Authority, with a predominant focus on parent/carer participation within Children’s Family Help and Safeguarding, but with additional responsibility for participation related to the Violence Against Women and Girls workstream. Your role will be to ensure that parents, carers and wider family’s rights are championed and that their voices and views influence everything we do. You will have the opportunity to lead on research projects related to participation and creating a community of practice to bring research and knowledge from a variety of sources into our participation space. You will be part of a small but mighty Participation Service with big ambitions and the full support of Camden leaders. Core responsibilities will include, but are not limited to the following areas of work: · Managing Camden’s parental advocacy offer, which matches parents involved in our Child Protection system with parent peer advocates, who share their expertise by experience to empower the parents to engage with and hold to account social work involvement in their children’s lives. You will need to recruit and train new advocates and oversee the work of the current team on an on-going basis while ensuring that the service meets the needs of Family Help and Safeguarding. · Overseeing the Family Advisory Board, an established group of Camden parents who have had involvement with Child in Need and Child Protection services in the past and work on parental participation in Camden’s services on an ongoing basis. This will include promoting the FAB across Social Work teams, recruiting new members to the Board and ensuring frequent and meaningful involvement by FAB in consultation and participation across Family Help and Safeguarding. · Coordinating Camden Voices Against Abuse, a network of parent survivors of Domestic Abuse. Your focus will be on ensuring their participation in and influence on Camden’s domestic abuse offer. · Supporting everyone in Children and Learning, and our partners, to work to the new ‘Working with Parents’ principles set out in statutory guidance Working Together to Safeguard Children 2023 About you We’re looking for someone with extensive experience of working with children, their parents/carers and wider families in a role that supported them to participate (preferably from a social care, early help, youth or education setting). Your experience of building trusting relationships with children, parents/carers and families will be coupled with a deep and practical knowledge of participation practice, methods and tools. You will bring experience of working collaboratively with a wide range of agencies, and strong oral and written communication skills. Your ability to show high levels of innovative thinking and creativity in participatory practice will be matched only by your commitment to promoting the rights of children and families to take part. To view the Job Profile, please click HERE or copy and paste the below URL into your browser: http://camdocs.camden.gov.uk/HPRMWebDrawer/Record/10807024/file/document?inline To find out more about what it is like to work at Camden, meet some of our People by visiting 'www.camdenjobs.co.uk/our-stories'. What We Offer At Camden, you’ll receive a host of benefits. From flexible working to 27 days annual leave ( bank holidays). We also know that a work life balance is extremely important so we also offer family leave, loan schemes and access to our incredible staff networks. We also have an incredible pensions scheme. Visit 'www.camdenjobs.co.uk/staff-benefits' for more details. Inclusion and Diversity We want Camden Council to be a great place to work and to ensure that our communities are represented across our workforce. A vital part of this is ensuring we are a truly inclusive organisation that encourages diversity in all respects, including diversity of thinking. We particularly welcome applications from Black, Asian and those of Other Ethnicities, LGBT, disabled and neurodiverse communities to make a real difference to our residents so that equalities and justice remains at the heart of everything we do. To discover more about Camden and our commitment towards diversity, equality and safeguarding, please visit https://www.camdenjobs.co.uk/inclusion-and-diversity Anonymised Application – in keeping with Camden’s commitment to inclusion the recruitment to this role is anonymised and supports the objective of reducing the impact of unconscious bias. Asking for Adjustments Camden is committed to making our recruitment practices barrier-free and as accessible as possible for everyone. This includes making adjustments or changes for disabled people, neurodiverse people or people with long-term health conditions. If you would like us to do anything differently during the application, interview or assessment process, including providing information in an alternative format, please contact us on 020 7974 6655, at resourcingcamden.gov.uk or post to 5 Pancras Square, London, N1C 4AG,