Children and Young Persons Practitioner - Refuge

Based: Basildon (multiple sites)

Rate: £18 ph umb

Start Date: ASAP

Duration: Temp

Hours: 35 hours per week

Our client, a registered Charity providing domestic abuse services across the south of Essex, is looking for a CYP Practitioner to join their team.

Synopsis of duties:

• Create a safe and welcoming environment for all children in the refuge setting.
• Ensure the voice of the child is considered in all assessments, support plans, and advocacy.
• Complete robust risk and therapeutic assessments for all children in the refuge setting, ensuring all their individual needs are identified and addressed.
• Actively manage a caseload of children and young people resident in the organisation's refuge settings, working with individuals to process and recover from their experiences.
• Work closely with mothers in the refuge, supporting them to be effective parents, meeting the needs of their children, and ensuring safeguarding concerns are identified and addressed.
• Support the planning and development of the Children’s Services offer.
• Deliver weekly support through one-to-one sessions and group work, utilising play and other interventions as required.
• Take an active role in leading play activities during school holidays and after school and provide fun and creative activities and opportunities for children and their mothers together.
• Advocate for the child to access nursery/school places or other educational settings.
• Work in partnership with statutory and voluntary agencies who are involved in the family, attending meetings including case conferences, core groups, and teams around the child as necessary.
• Deliver parent and child group work programs such as Women’s Aid’s You, Me, Mum and Helping Hands programme.
• Provide support and advice on parenting to service users and colleagues, reporting concerns via the organisation’s safeguarding procedures.
• Arrange day trips and events for families during school holidays.
• Attend and transport families to day events, where required.
• Ensure the timely and accurate input of service user data into the organisation’s case management system and all other administrative duties associated with the role.
• Undertake risk assessments for all activities to comply with health and safety requirements.
• Work in a manner that ensures cultural sensitivity, and addresses discrimination and other barriers to accessing service.
• Represent the organisation at external partnership meetings, maintaining a high level of professional conduct at all times and endorsing the wider Violence against Women and Girls (VAWG) agenda in public forums.
• Identify any safeguarding issues within the services for adults at risk and/or children and follow organisational safeguarding procedures to ensure the swift reporting of concerns to social services.
• Ensure all matters of Health and Safety and well-being relating to staff and service users are implemented to the requisite standard and checked as required.
• Regularly update knowledge around domestic abuse, stalking, and the VAWG context.
• Participate in regular management supervision to ensure the highest standards of support and advocacy.
• Maintain strict organisational confidentiality, professional boundaries, and security procedures.

Essential Requirements:

• Experience of working with children/young people/adults experiencing domestic violence and abuse.
• Experience in managing a caseload of children and young people, assessing their needs, and formulating support plans.
• Experience in planning play activities for children and young people.
• Experience in identifying safeguarding concerns and reporting concerns in line with local procedures.
• DBS on the update service.
• Available immediately.
• Car driver with access to vehicle.

Supporting Futures Consulting acts as both an employer and an agency.