Organisation: Leicestershire County Council
Work Location: Your designated workplace is County Hall, Leicester in the Dedicated Placement Support Team (DPST).
Worker Category: This is a hybrid post involving fieldwork and working from home, but DPST spends at least one day a week in County Hall as a team, usually two.
Salary: £34,350 - £37,950 per annum
Working Hours: 37 Hours Your line manager will arrange your working hours with you, giving consideration to operational needs. This role does require you to be able to work flexibly and may include evenings and some weekends, in order to meet the needs of young people and their families.
Contract Type: Permanent
Closing Date: 10.04.2025
Interview Date(s): 24.04.2025
Are you looking for an exciting and interesting opportunity to work within a creative, dynamic and energetic team?
About the Role
DPST take a whole family approach and work flexibly with children in care in order to improve outcomes for our children and increase placement stability. The team works creatively to provide a range of support, underpinned by a therapeutic and trauma informed approach, with the aim of ensuring our children are able reach their full potential and thrive.
The main themes of the team’s work are:
Working directly with children/young people and their carers, using targeted interventions, including with parents where children are placed with them, using a variety of resources and approaches, including joint work where appropriate.
Assessing the needs of children, young people and their carers, in order to inform the planning and delivery of work that will meet the needs of children/young people, in order to sustain positive outcomes for them.
Supporting young people making transitions, particularly when ‘stepping down’ from a residential placement, or rehabilitation home.
Increasing carers’ understanding of therapeutic parenting and trauma informed practice.
Supporting safety planning around a child or young person, by delivering strategies and interventions which address identified risk factors, and planning support that will meet the needs of an individual’s care plan.
Regularly monitoring and reviewing the provision of work and making adjustments when required, dependent on the needs of children, young people and their parents/carers. Using a variety of methods and to help sustain improved outcomes, including putting parents/carers in touch with community groups and other services as part of a care plan.
Advocating for children in care, ensuring their voices are heard, and their needs are fully met, both physically and emotionally.
Building effective and positive working relationships with families, encouraging greater social inclusion and involvement in pro social activities. Planning, delivering and evaluating group work.
In order to achieve this, you will of course have support from your line manager, including regular supervision.
About You
To apply for this post, you must:
* Have an NVQ level 3 in Childcare Diploma or Childcare Qualification, or evidence of continuing professional development.
* Have experience of working directly with challenging children and young people, as well as vulnerable young people in at least one of the following settings: social care, education, youth offending or health.
* Have knowledge of child development and an awareness of differing needs of children and young people and their carers, knowledge of other cultures, and have an understanding of the risk factors and prevention work that impacts upon children’s attachment, and presenting behaviours.
* Have good time management skills, organisational and planning skills, assessment skills, IT skills, and a good standard of case recording and report writing skills.
The ability to:
* Communicate confidently, respectfully and persuasively with children, young people and carers.
* Adapt and respond flexibly to changing requirements.
* Build trusting relationship with children, young people and their carers.
* Display a calm and non-confrontational approach in difficult situations
* Observe and analyse behaviours, their causes, and put forward solutions to problems using a solution focussed and therapeutic foundation.
* Work effectively as member of the team or on your own initiative.
* Work in partnership with other agencies.
* Contribute to meetings including in a multiagency setting, where you will share information about the progress of your work.
* To assist in collecting and collating statistical information
* Maintain concise and accurate record either electronically or in manual written case files.
* Work within the framework of Signs of Safety.
* Be accountable for allocated casework.
* Undertake administrative tasks, maintaining effective recording systems and responding to queries.
You must also have an understanding of, and commitment to, equality, diversity and inclusion.
You must be able to work in accordance with relevant statutory and local policies and procedures for safeguarding.
You must have a current driving licence, access to a car, and be able to travel to designated locations.
You must be able to perform all duties and tasks with reasonable adjustment, where appropriate, in accordance with the provisions of the Equality Act 2010.
In addition, we expect you to share our commitment to our values and will ask you to evidence when you have demonstrated them as part of the interview process.
For more information or an informal discussion, please contact:
Helen Taylor - Team Manager
Helen.Taylor@leics.gov.uk
Phone - 0116 305 6325
How to Apply
Leicestershire County Council is an inclusive organisation which is on a journey to embed and celebrate equality, diversity and inclusion at every level. We warmly welcome and encourage applications from people of all backgrounds, as having a diverse workforce with different perspectives and ideas is fundamental to our values and enriches the services we offer our communities. We particularly welcome applicants from Ethnically Diverse and LGBTQ+ communities and people with disabilities to create a balanced workforce and one that reflects the communities we serve. Applicants with a disability who meet the criteria listed in the 'About You' section above will be offered an interview under the Disability Confident Employer Scheme.
To apply for this job, please click on the apply button. You will need to upload a supporting statement as part of your application which explains how you meet the criteria listed in the 'About You' section above. For more information, see the How to Apply section on our career site.
We reserve the right to close this vacancy early if we receive sufficient applications for the role. Therefore, if you are interested, please submit your application as early as possible.
If you have any technical issues when trying to apply for this post or you want to request an application pack in an alternative format, please contact our Employee Service Centre by telephoning 0300 3030222 (select option 2) or raising a ticket via our online portal:
By applying for this post, you agree to our Terms and Conditions.
Proud member of the Disability Confident employer scheme
Disability Confident
About Disability Confident
A Disability Confident employer will generally offer an interview to any applicant that declares they have a disability and meets the minimum criteria for the job as defined by the employer. It is important to note that in certain recruitment situations such as high-volume, seasonal and high-peak times, the employer may wish to limit the overall numbers of interviews offered to both disabled people and non-disabled people. For more details please go to Disability Confident .