Temporary Personal Adviser - Children's Services

Reference no:  Haringey RQ819864

Pay Rate: £17.57 per hour PAYE 

Role Length: This opening assignment is for 2 - 3 months

An Enhanced DBS is required for this role.

To ensure the diverse population of care leavers are provided with the necessary support, to successfully make their transition to adulthood.

To provide a high quality service to care leavers, working in partnership where possible with families, and other statutory and third sector organisations.

To participate in team, service meetings and activities as appropriate.

Key responsibilities/activities:

• Deliver a high quality service to care leavers aimed at ensuring best outcomes and enabling the young person to succeed as they make their transition to adulthood
• Regularly prepare, update, review and implement pathway plans in conjunction with the supervising manager and ensure parallel planning where applicable
• Undertake human rights assessments and ensure that the rights of young people are observed
• Co-ordinate the provision of services and take reasonable steps so that care leavers make use of services available
• Keep informed about care leavers’ progress and wellbeing; ensuring plans are progressed to meet assessed need
• Keep full, accurate and up to date records of contacts with care leavers and services provided, accurately and in a timely manner on the care leaver’s electronic case file
• Work holistically with care leavers and families around times of transition and transfer to additional services where appropriate.
• Seek active partnership with parents, carers and other professionals to promote and safeguard the welfare of young people
• Support care leavers to enter and sustain education, training and employment
• Work with other organisations to overcome barriers to learning and employment faced by young people
• Support care leavers in all aspects of the process required to access accommodation and to ensure they are supported to maintain their tenancy and their resettlement needs are met
• Ensure care leavers have accessed welfare benefits where eligible
• Contribute to workshops/training sessions for care leavers to provide independence skills and other identified skills
• Work with care leavers who have additional needs such as complex mental health, learning disabilities, physical disabilities, young parents (possibly subject to CP/Proceedings), immigration issues which also includes those who have an adult services lead worker
• Undertake assessment of need following re-referral post age 21 for those wishing to resume education or training where eligible
• Ensure young people obtain legal advice as required in order to progress their immigration status and to carefully monitor and support this process whilst maintaining active links with the Border and Immigration Agency and legal advisors. Ensure parallel planning for possible return to country of origin
• Ensure that all expenditure on cases is properly authorised and recorded, and that cases with financial packages are regularly monitored and reviewed
• Promote the welfare of care leavers with particular regard for their age, sex, health, race, religion, culture and life experiences
• Maintain and develop up to date relevant skills and knowledge of current legislation, policy and practice, through training and development opportunities as required or agreed by Team Manager
• Take responsibility for managing an individual caseload, having regard to the relative needs of all service users and ensuring an effective use of time and resources
• Bring any issues of concern regarding a young person/adult or a placement to the immediate attention of the supervising or duty manager where there is reason to believe that the young person/adult may be at risk of harm or have been harmed
• Attend and make use of supervision and staff appraisals.
• Contribute through team meetings and organisational events to the development of the service
• Use information technology systems to carry out duties.
• Act as duty officer on a rota basis and as required by the Team Manager. The duty worker is responsible for dealing with emergencies, which arise on cases when the allocated worker is unavailable
• Report any concerns about abuse or malpractice by colleagues, in line with the Council’s Whistle Blowing Policy
• Work flexibly in line with needs of the service which will entail working outside of normal office hours, and out of borough visits.
• Ensure that all legislation and local council policies and procedures, including Health and Safety are adhered to
• These activities may be varied from time to time to meet the changing needs of the service

“Role Requirements” – to give yourself the maximum chance of success please try and ensure your CV addresses the following essential criteria:

Qualifications and Membership:

• A professional qualification is not required but it is expected that professional development will be undertaken in the role
• NVQ 3 Health & Social Care or other relevant qualification (desirable)

Knowledge:

• Understanding of the Children (Leaving Care) Act 1989 and guidance relating to Care Leavers
• Understanding of the Childrens Leaving Care Act 2000 related regulations and guidance
• Knowledge of the difficulties and range of issues faced by children in and leaving care as they make their transition to adulthood
• Knowledge of asylum, immigration and human rights legislation (desirable)
• Knowledge and awareness of issues relating to discrimination, disadvantage and the practical application of the equalities legislation (desirable)
• Knowledge of child development and impact on maturity (desirable)

Skills and Abilities:

• 2 yrs minimum working with young people in a supportive role in a voluntary or statutory setting
• Ability to empower and support a person-centred approach in the development, planning, reviewing of support plans
• Direct experience of working with care leavers (desirable)
• Understanding of children and young people from abroad and their needs (desirable)
• Understanding the issues relating to the education, emotional & physical/social wellbeing of children from diverse backgrounds (desirable)
• Ability to initiate, write and produce effective reports to an excellent standard
• Demonstrate good written and verbal skills in a variety of settings, including colleagues, young people, professionals and external agencies
• Ability to respond to complaints in a polite and timely manner in accordance with policy
• Experience of dealing with distressed and complex young people in a professional manner
• Experience of resettlement support and the issues of resettling young people
• Ability to converse in a confident and effective manner with others from a wide range of backgrounds (desirable)
• Knowledge of Pathway Plans and Reviews (desirable)
• Ability to command the respect and trust of young people (desirable)
• Experience of drafting support plans and other assessment recording (desirable)
• Understanding of the issues faced by independent living (desirable)
• Understand the importance of delivering a front line duty service for children and young people
• Experience in IT systems
• Knowledge of Data Protection Act as it applies to information sharing and recording
• Experience of Word, Outlook and computerised process and systems (desirable)
• Demonstrate maturity and resilience to cope with working in a stressful and demanding situation (desirable)
• Understanding of working with children & Young People from different racial and cultural background
• Understanding the barriers that young people face accessing and sustaining education, training and employment.

NB: Please feel free to apply to us direct via [email protected] by quoting the job reference and job title exactly. SEE DETAILS AT THE BOTTOM OF THIS AD.

If you have previously applied to one of our vacancies and have already sent the required supporting documentation to us, please make this clear when you re-apply as this will help speed up your application.

To help speed up the process of uploading your CV to the client we would suggest that you send us your CV in Word format (or equivalent) if possible, rather than as a PDF

If you are successful in securing this role, please note that for the entire duration of this contract, regardless of extension you will be working this role at the PAYE rate that has been advertised. For absolute clarity, we only work on a PAYE basis, rather than entertaining umbrella pay terms, we do not offer Ltd/umbrella or outside IR35 rates. If you wish to understand PAYE vs Umbrella more, please let us know and we can send you some additional information for clarity.