About Us
Early Help and Targeted Support services in Warwickshire have seen some exciting changes, helping to ensure children, young people and families access the right support at the right time. This was recognised by Ofsted in our 2021 inspection where we were grade Good in all areas:
- Children and families in Warwickshire benefit from consistently good quality services.
- Children and families in Warwickshire benefit from a clearly defined and accessible Early Help offer, ensuring that they receive support services when needed.
- Children and Families have access to a wide range of helpful services at an early stage, which make a real difference to their lives.
Warwickshire Children and Families continues to invest in and grow our Early Help service ensuring we can provide the right support at the right time through multi-disciplinary teams, our network and an incredible and established offer.
We have an exciting opportunity for a permanent, full time Targeted Support Officer to join our service. Early Help in Warwickshire continues to grow, and the Countywide post will provide support to locality teams in response to the need of the service which will require at different times working across the five districts and boroughs.
The post holder will be motivated in the coordination of Early Help, working closely with locality-based teams and a range of key stakeholders including statutory partners, service providers, the voluntary sector, children, young people and families.
About the Role
Essential experience to be successful in the role includes:
- Educated to degree level (level 6) in a relevant field.
- Confident in the delivery of training to professionals.
- Model and develop restorative/relational approach to growing partnerships and strong professional relationships.
- Develop targeted contacts to increase capacity and effectiveness of the Early Help network
- Communicate and interact with children and families in a restorative manner as part of the Early Help process.
- Use Local Authority systems to monitor and record interventions and support for children and families.
- Identify services to support children and families and advise practitioners about putting a package of support in place, requiring wide knowledge of the range of services available in the area and their criteria. This includes the administering internal referral systems.
- Excellent organisational skills to respond to the needs of the service.
- Analytical skills
About WCC Children and Families Service
At Warwickshire County Council (WCC) we work with children and families restoratively, building strong relationships and connections to help families find long-lasting solutions. Our work contributes to our wider County Council aim – to make Warwickshire the best it can be for everyone. It’s a big responsibility that can be challenging at times, but this is what drives our staff to succeed, develop and achieve. If you’re someone who wants to do the best job possible, who approaches everything with passion, tenacity, courage and purpose, then we want you to work with us.
Throughout 2020 and 2021 we continued to look to the future and build on our programme of change and investment in the service.... Covid hasn’t stopped us!
It has helped us shape and develop a focus on wellbeing, utilising technology, opening opportunities for career development and renewed our focus on reflective and supportive leadership. These are the backbone to our offer to our workforce.
WCC invested in Microsoft technology in 2020 including the use of Surface Pros and MS365 suite which has enabled our workforce to seamlessly transition to community and homeworking. We have a whole council commitment to flexible working and employee wellbeing. We nurture, support and challenge each other to achieve the best outcomes for all our children.
WCC is an authority that engages with innovation. We are a financially secure Local Authority and want to achieve an outstanding service for children. To this end we have received £21m investment programme over four years to implement new and creative ways of working with children. This funding is from both the Council and Department for Education to strengthen relationship and evidenced based practice. We have introduced the Leeds Family Values model which includes increasing Family Group Conferences, providing more support for Special Guardians and a Caring Dads Programme. We have also begun implementing multi-Disciplinary ways of working (which is focussed on embedding adult mental health, substance misuse and domestic abuse services in our teams. We also have a new Children’s Workforce Academy to further support our staff and managers develop. All our practice is underpinned by restorative and trauma informed practice.
We want our practitioners to spend their time building relationships with families to achieve change.
We’re building something very special in Warwickshire. A community of practice – with diverse thought, skills and experiences. Working for every child to create a Child Friendly Warwickshire.
- Find out more about Warwickshire Children & Families Service
For the full Job Description and Person Specification, please click on the link below:
Targeted Support Officer
For an informal discussion about the role and the work of Warwickshire Early Help please contact Lisa Anderson-Kirby, Early Help Team Leader – Stratford District by email: lisaandersonkirby@warwickshire.gov.uk or Stacey Gill, Operations Manager: staceygill@warwickshire.gov.uk
An additional Targeted Support Officer role based in Stratford District is also being recruited alongside this post. If you are interested in being considered for both roles, please indicate this in your application.
Additional Information
Closing Date: 18th July 2023
Interview Date: 27th and 28th July 2023
The Fluency Duty is outlined in the Code of Practice on the English language requirements for public sector workers. The Fluency Duty for this role is Required. You must be able to speak and provide advice in accurate spoken English to the public.
Warwickshire County Council are committed to safeguarding and promoting the welfare of children, young people and adults and expects all staff and volunteers to share this commitment. This post is subject to an enhanced DBS disclosure.
To apply for this vacancy please click on the 'Apply' button.
Our method of application is online, please note, CV’s should not been submitted unless asked to do so.
If you are unable to apply using the 'Apply' button please contact the Recruitment Centre on hrandpayroll@warwickshire.gov.uk including your contact details and any relevant screenshots.
You will be notified of our shortlisting decision via email, so please check your email on a regular basis after submitting your application.
As part of being a Disability Confident employer we guarantee to interview anyone with a disability whose application meets the minimum criteria for the post. By ‘minimum criteria’ we mean that you must provide us with evidence in your application form which demonstrates that you generally meet the level of competence required for each competence, as well as meeting any of the qualifications, skills or experience defined as essential in the person specification.
Should you require application forms in an alternative format / language or any adjustments to be made throughout the application process or upon appointment, please contact hrandpayroll@warwickshire.gov.uk and we will make every effort to meet your specific requirements.
Warwickshire County Council (WCC) is committed to equality of opportunity for all employees and is keen to address areas of under representation in its workforce, this is because we really understand the importance of different voices, experiences, perspectives, and backgrounds within our workforce. Therefore, we strongly encourage applications from members of underrepresented groups. WCC has a number of staff network groups which provide peer support and safe spaces for employees who hold these and other identities. See more