*INTERNAL APPLICATIONS ONLY* Early Help Coordinator

Organisation: London Borough of Waltham Forest

Salary: PO5 £52,194 -£55,323

Contract Type: Full time/Fixed term up to 2 years

Working hours per week: 36

Application Deadline: 22/03/2026

Proposed Interview Date(s): 9th and 10th April

Reference: 2021

About Us: Bursting with culture, energy, and opportunity, the London Borough of Waltham Forest is a fantastic and exciting place to work. We are a highly ambitious borough. Driven by culture and the innate creativity of our residents, we have developed new and innovative ways to build our communities. Our Council is relentlessly resident-focused, insight-led, digitally driven and commercially minded; a Council focused on meeting the needs of our existing and future residents. London Borough of Waltham Forest is one of the Mayor of London’s Good Work Standard employers. This accreditation is proof of our commitment to creating a healthy, fair and inclusive workplace. This includes fair pay and conditions, workplace well-being, skills and progression and diversity and recruitment.

About the role: The purpose of the role is to operationally manage a small team of Family Engagement Advisors and have responsibility for strengthening and developing Early Help Delivery and best practice, within a portfolio of schools and settings across a geographic region of the borough. To ensure quality, value for money and safeguarding of vulnerable and hard to reach families at all times. To ensure the service complies with relevant legislation, regulations and policies. The role will involve supporting schools and other partner agencies to identify families who require additional input from services and facilitate their successful understanding and navigation of available support pathways and relevant referral processes. The role also includes providing information and advice on access to the Early Help Offer, managing a small team of staff and providing a pivotal supporting role with the MASH team, via pre-referral consultations (Help & Support) to educational settings. Family Help Leads work closely with other Operation Managers and Senior Leaders to provide a seamless service as the Early Help division enters a significant period of change under the current Social Care reforms. The successful candidates will have a professional background and a proven track record of delivering highly effective work with complex families but has a competent skill set required for engaging with senior staff in school settings. We are looking for people with a genuine passion for engaging with partners to bring about improved self-reliance and better outcomes for vulnerable families.

Minimum requirements for this post are:

• Higher education to degree level or equivalent
• A professional qualification relevant to the post
• Evidence of commitment to continuing professional development
• Plan and deliver training to professionals across the Early Help Partnership
• Undertake/support consultation procedures
• Identify issues, resolving as appropriate and escalating complex problems if necessary
• To promote the early help framework and way of working as a key part of improving outcomes for children
• Manage a small number of staff
• To provide Early Help expertise to education settings, to support the integrity and quality of referrals sent to the MASH

Qualifications and Requirements: To be considered for this position, you should meet the following requirements:

• Experience of working with children, young people and families
• Experience of consistent and high-quality relational based, systemic practice
• Experience of family or parenting support and designing parenting support programmes
• Proven project management skills demonstrated by successful outcomes
• A proven track record of leading and implementing initiatives that produced real improvements in services for children and their families
• Experience of working in partnership, in particular with families and schools, with improved outcomes for children and their families
• Experience of involving service users in the design of services
• Knowledge and understanding of health and safety and safeguarding young people
• A sound understanding of equal opportunities and diversity in the context of service delivery

Terms and conditions: The below terms and conditions apply to this role:

• Satisfactory employment references and CIFAS identity checks
• Satisfactory declaration of interest
• This role is subject to safer recruitment practices as it involves work with children and/or vulnerable adults
• Satisfactory DBS check
• As a public authority, we must ensure that members of staff in public-facing roles are able to speak fluent English. This means that they must have a command of spoken English, with confidence and accuracy, sufficient for the effective performance of their role. This requirement does not refer to any particular English language qualifications, regional or international accents, dialects, speech impediments or the tone of conversations. It does not require staff to speak only in English.

How to Apply: Interested candidates are invited to submit their applications online by pressing the ‘Apply’ button below. This includes a supporting statement that outlines to us how your skills and experience make you a good candidate for this vacancy. 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.

Equal Opportunity Employer: Waltham Forest is a diverse borough where diversity is valued and is integral to both service delivery and employment of its staff. The Council is proud of its rich mix of communities and as the largest employer in the area, it works hard to respond to the changing needs of its population. We use our statutory duties on race, gender and disability equality and best practice in respect of age, faith and sexual orientation to ensure equality of opportunity in the workplace. The Council is committed to meeting its 4 equality objectives:

• Promoting equality of opportunity
• Opposing all forms of discrimination, intolerance and disadvantage
• Ensuring our workforce reflects the diverse communities of Waltham Forest at all levels
• Providing fair, appropriate, accessible and excellent Services to all

Respecting Diversity is a core Council value. To support the above and reduce the risk of bias in its recruitment activities, the council is operating an anonymous shortlisting process, which hides personal information that can identify individuals until their application has been considered for shortlisting. The council also operates a scheme whereby, for jobs graded up to and including scale SO2, internal candidates are considered first. This includes those candidates who self-identify as having a disability for the purposes of the Disability Confident scheme. For more information, please refer to our recruitment and selection policy. We are keen to support employees to balance their working life with other commitments. Therefore, wherever possible, we will consider working arrangements that suit an individual's personal circumstances whilst still meeting the needs of the Council. If you would like to discuss the possible flexible working options that might be applicable to this role, please contact the person named below or feel free to discuss this during your interview. The Council’s preference is for online application. However, if you have a disability and are unable to complete an online application, please email recruitment@walthamforest.gov.uk so we can arrange an alternative application method.