Family Support Worker NEW Bury Council Posted today Bury £14,299 Expires on 24/08/2026 in Bury St Edmunds

Team - Victoria Children and Family Centre

About the role

Are you passionate about helping families maintain vital bonds during challenging times? As a Family Support Worker, you will play a crucial role in the lives of children and young people by facilitating safe, positive and supportive 'Family Time' visits. Using a strengths-based approach you will help families recognise and build on their capabilities. Your work will directly impact decisions made as part of care planning, ensuring that children's voices and safety remain at the heart of care proceedings. In addition, you will also produce Life Story Books for children adopted. These personalised books help children to understand their personal history, identity and unique life journey to their adoptive family.

What you will do

• Facilitate visits: Support and supervise scheduled family time contact directed through the family courts.
• Observe and support: Actively encourage positive interactions, role-modelling good parenting abilities and skills where appropriate.
• Document interactions: Using excellent observational skills you will maintain sharp, objective and factual notes that will be shared with other professionals and the courts.
• Write professional reports: Provide concise, high quality and evidence-based reports for Social Workers and Court proceedings.
• Ensure safety: Maintain a safe, welcoming and secure environment for children and their birth families.
• Collaborate: Work closely with the wider Social Work teams to manage risk and support families in crisis.

Who you are

• Qualified: You hold a mandatory level 3 qualification in Social Care, Youth Work, Early Years or a related field.
• Strengths-focused: You look for what is working well in a family and understand how to empower families to build on their strengths.
• A skilled writer: You can transform complex observations into concise, clear and court ready written reports.
• Resilient and objective: You maintain professional boundaries and remain calm under pressure in challenging and emotional situations.
• Clear communicator: You possess excellent spoken and written English skills to guide families and advocate for children and young people at their meetings.
• Non-judgemental: You treat every family with dignity and fairness regardless of their background or circumstances.

Normal hours of work are 18.5 hours per week based around the usual business working week. Dependent on service requirements, you may be required to work on a rota basis.

About Bury

The Council is committed to safeguarding and promoting the welfare of children, young people and vulnerable adults and expects all staff to share this commitment. Appointment may be subject to a satisfactory disclosure at the appropriate level under the Disclosure and Barring Service. In line with safer recruitment, please ensure that your application/CV covers your full employment history and there is a reason noted for any gaps in employment. Successful candidates will be asked to provide relevant references for the past ten years and character references will not be accepted. Please note we are unable to support with sponsorship at this time.

As a Corporate Parent, ensure that the work and services you deliver considers our care experienced young people, promotes their life chances, empowers them to influence the policies, services, and decisions that affect them, champions their rights, and ensures they grow up in the best possible way.

If you have completed the GM Elevate (Leadership Development) Programme, please indicate this within the 'About You' or 'Supporting Statement' section of your application.

Benefits of working for Bury Council

To hear about the benefits for working with Bury Council, please visit Bury - Home | greater.jobs. We support employees to work with agility, where appropriate for the post and service requirements. We are committed to Bury being an equal society that recognises, values and embraces all people, regardless of any difference, for the skills, abilities and experiences they bring into the workforce and the wider community. Therefore we guarantee an interview for disabled people, looked after children/care leavers, armed forces personnel (including reservists and veterans) and carers of adults or disabled children if they meet the essential criteria.