Edge of Care Practitioner

Join the London Borough of Hackney in making a difference to children and families!

Are you an experienced professional passionate about supporting families at high risk of children entering care? The London Borough of Hackney is seeking a dedicated and dynamic Intensive Family Intervention Team (Edge of Care) Practitioner to join a team providing outstanding services to vulnerable children and their families.

The Intensive Family Intervention is a secondary, non-case holding service focused on preventing children from coming into care. You will work closely with various stakeholders across Children's Social Care, Early Help, Education, Youth Justice, and the voluntary sector. Your role involves ensuring high-quality, intensive support for adolescents and their families during times of crisis, developing effective intervention plans, and managing a team of dedicated practitioners.

We are currently looking for experienced, enthusiastic, motivated and dynamic practitioners to provide intensive support to adolescents to remain living with their parents or primary caregivers, delivering high quality, specialist, intensive and responsive support for children and their primary caregivers at points of relational crisis, where there is a risk of breakdown of the child’s care arrangement.

Candidates must:

• Relevant professional qualification in Youth Work, Therapy/Psychology, Teaching, Social Pedagogy, Health, or Social Work
• A minimum of two years of direct experience working with children and families
• Ability to work flexibly, including evenings and occasional weekends, to meet families’ needs
• A satisfactory DBS check at an enhanced level

Join us in Hackney for your next career move and start afresh in 2025. Our priority is to provide the highest quality support and care for Hackney’s children and families, providing the right support at the right time. We are rated Good by Ofsted and are continually seeking to improve our services and set this out in our Action Plan.

Benefits:

• Generous holiday allowance – 28 days per year, rising to 33 days after five years
• Unrivalled pension scheme
• Flexible working options including part-time options
• A range of discounts at local eating establishments (of which there are many!) and subsidised gym membership
• Access to financial and season ticket loans
• Health and wellbeing benefits, such as lunchtime fitness classes
• A comprehensive training and development offer
• We are a member of Cycle Scheme and offer free pool bikes

Why Hackney? 

• Our Systemic, Trauma-Informed and Anti-Racist (STAR) practice model informs everything we do
• We provide wide-ranging and excellent training and development opportunities; we will help you to develop excellent social work practice, leading to career advancement at your own pace
• Following on from our Anti Racist Summit in October 2023 we remain committed to dismantling systemic racism, discrimination, injustice and making anti-racism a foundation of our practice
• We pride ourselves on offering a high quality level of personal and case supervision, with a strong clinical offer and an approachable/visible management presence
• We are an innovative borough where we collaborate to support change for the children and families we work for and for each other

Hackney is one of the most dynamic and progressive local authorities in the UK. We are a resilient, vibrant, and creative borough in the heart of London, with strong, diverse communities and a powerful set of shared values.

Over the past twenty years, the Council has built up first-class services, outstanding public infrastructure, and a reputation for excellence, innovation, and ambition. We are leading the way on essential work such as our fight for equity in Hackney with a particular focus on becoming an actively anti-racist borough. But the work doesn’t stop there, we are proactive in our approach to bringing fairness to all aspects of life including gender, neurodiversity and across the poverty divide.

As a Council, our most outstanding asset is our staff, who are highly dedicated to serving our residents and committed to our goals as an organisation.

If you want to work in a place where you can represent our values so we achieve the best for our residents, please click on the apply button below.

We operate a fair and open anonymous selection process. Therefore, we do not accept supporting statements or CV’s.

To proceed with your application, you will need to create an account and submit your application.

As part of the application process, you will need to complete a number of competency based questions. These questions allow you to demonstrate your suitability for the role and provide examples of your skills, knowledge and experience outlined in the job description.

We understand the benefits of using AI in the workplace. However, if you are thinking of using this tool to submit your application, we ask you to think about what value it will add. AI tools tend to lack the personal touch and authenticity we value in candidates. We encourage you to showcase your unique knowledge and skills using your own voice.

Closing date for applications: 03 August 2025 (22:59).

Interview date: W/c 26 August 2025.

We are also working towards our vision, which is to be a place for everyone; where residents and staff can be proud; a place that celebrates diversity and where everyone can feel valued, included and involved. In order to achieve this, we look for people who are: Proud; Ambitious; Pioneering; Open; Proactive; Inclusive.

Hackney Council works to eradicate discrimination on the basis of age, disability, gender reassignment, marriage and civil partnership, pregnancy and maternity, race, religion or belief, sex, and sexual orientation.We also recognise that people can be disadvantaged by their social and economic circumstances, so we will also work to eliminate discrimination and disadvantage caused by social class. We also welcome those interested in flexible working. We particularly welcome applications from disabled people, as this group is currently under represented in our workforce.

The Council has a dedicated employment support service (Hackney Works), which offers Hackney residents guidance in relation to applying for jobs. If you are thinking about applying for a job, please contact the Hackney Works team to find out what support is available: hackneyworks@hackney.gov.uk