Family Support Team Manager in Ilford

Ladywood District Children's Centres/Family Hub is a targeted service for families with children aged 0-5 years. The Family Support team holds 1-1 caseload work and facilitates group work for families in the Ladywood area. This is an exciting opportunity to become part of an established team. We are seeking a full time Family Support Team Manager to lead and manage the Family Support function and allied provision in the Children's Centre, including a team of staff, and improve outcomes for children under 5 and their families, including pregnant women.

Please note that this is a locality based role, and frequent on site presence will be required, along with travel within the Birmingham area. It will not be possible to undertake this role on a virtual/remote basis.

The successful candidate will be required to:

• Provide excellent leadership, management and coordination responsibilities for the Family Support Teams.
• Be the Designated Safeguarding Lead for the Children's Centre and oversee the management of safeguarding at case work and family level.
• Lead and manage staff who hold a case load of children with support needs to include Early Help, Child In Need, Child Protection and SEND.
• Lead and manage staff in undertaking effective 1 to 1 and group-based interventions with complex families, providing expert knowledge and guidance and assisting in decision-making.
• Ensure the provision of evidence-based parenting programmes.
• Manage a daily Family Support Drop-in service.
• Provide supervision to staff, ensuring reflective practice.
• Audit recording and report-writing, family plans and interventions and ensure good practice.
• Ensure that good information systems are established and maintained that reflect effective monitoring and tracking of family outcomes.
• Ensure effective partnership working and communication with partners around safeguarding children and families.
• Provide leadership at Allocations meetings alongside health visiting.
• Ensure effective Child and parent engagement in any decision making.
• Ensure effective support of students, volunteers and apprentices as required.

It is essential that you have:

• Qualification in relevant field or equivalent experience.
• Possession of Management qualification or working towards one (desirable).
• Extensive knowledge of Child Protection and Safeguarding issues.
• Extensive knowledge of child development.
• Knowledge of a range of interventions to meet a range of needs, including evidence-based parenting programmes.
• Understanding of the issue of domestic abuse and its impact on women and children.
• Understanding of the issue of substance misuse and how it impacts on children.
• Understanding of the complexity of poor mental health and its impact on families.
• Understanding of the impact of poverty.
• Understanding of the impact of poor parenting on child and adult well-being.
• A sound understanding of recruitment, induction, supervision and appraisal of staff and identifying training needs.
• Knowledge of the impact of discrimination on family life and commitment to equality of opportunities.

• Significant experience as a practitioner of undertaking assessments, identifying appropriate interventions and providing case work and group work support to families with children from pre-birth to 5 where Early Help is required.
• Significant experience of providing successful interventions with families where there is: substance abuse, poor mental health and domestic abuse.
• Significant experience of providing step up/down family support where children are on plans - CiN, CP, EHC or are in care.
• Experience of managing a team of family support workers, including students and volunteers.
• Experience of working with families in areas of disadvantage, or where they experience discrimination.
• Experience of working with families who are reluctant to engage.
• Experience of delivery of targeted ante-natal and peri-natal support services.
• Experience of advocacy on behalf of families.
• Experience of report-writing and court attendance in child protection and safeguarding situations.
• Excellent interpersonal relationships with colleagues, including from a range of disciplines.
• Proven ability to undertake intensive, direct work, with vulnerable children and their families.
• Resilience.
• Good communication and presentational skills.
• Ability to use ICT systems.
• Staff management and motivation.

The working pattern for this role is Monday to Friday 9am - 5pm but may include some occasional evenings. Barnardo's believe in creating equality of opportunity in the workplace and supporting people to manage their work-life balance and are therefore open to offering flexible working arrangements.

At Barnardo's we are committed to safeguarding and promoting the welfare of children and we expect all staff and volunteers to share in this commitment. Our safer recruitment processes mean that the safety and welfare of the child is paramount at every stage of the process and therefore, we adopt rigorous scrutiny in our pre-employment checking. This post is subject to a range of pre-employment checks including a Criminal Records Enhanced Disclosure for the successful candidate.

For further information please contact Recruiting Manager, Ruth Ellis, via email: ruth.ellis@barnardos.org.uk

Please note due to the high volume of applications for some posts, this advert might close before the displayed closing date. We recommend that you apply for this role as soon as possible.