Family Link Social Worker

Job description

Contract Terms

Grade: SWC
Salary: £38,443 – £50,083 per annum
Full Time, Permanent (36 Hours per week)
Closing Date: Sunday 5th May 2024
Interview Date: Week commencing 13th or 20th May 2024

About the Service

Haringey Council’s fostering service is committed to proving high quality services to Children and Young Adults within its care, and in doing so to raise the profile of fostering to ensure all our children have positive experiences whilst living away from their birth families.
The service is responsible for the recruitment, assessment, training and support of all internally approved foster carers including those who are that are placed with ‘Connected Persons’.
The role we are advertising is for a Family Link Social Worker that will predominantly be based within the Disabled Children’s Service, with support from the fostering service specifically in relation to meeting the fostering regulations with the family link service.
The Family Link Social Worker will be involved in recruiting, assessing, supporting and training carers who are approved under the Fostering Regulations. Family Link carers are assessed as Foster Carers; this involves comprehensive checks/procedures and a series of in-depth visits in order to probe the applicants’ motivation and suitability.
Family Link sits within the Disabled Children’s Service, providing a comprehensive and integrated social care pathway for children and young people  with Learning Disabilities and other disabilities from childhood into adolescence and up to adulthood.
The Family Link Social Worker will be responsible for the provision of a specialist short break service that links disabled children and their parents with another family or individual to give them a short break on a regular basis. This could be overnight or day support.
Though the role will be based within the Disabled Children’s Service, there will be an overlap with Haringey’s Fostering Service where clinical supervision will be provided by a Fostering Manager.

Fostering Service is committed to:

• Ensuring that the service exceeds the requirements of the Fostering Services Regulations, National Minimum Standards and best practice.
• Engage and empower all children and young people to have a more effective voice in making decisions about their own care and planning service developments.
• Ensure that children unable to return to their birth family have agreed permanency plans which give them appropriate legal security and are progressed on a timescale that is right for the child. By developing the use of Special Guardianship and rationalising the delivery of Long Term Fostering.
• Support IROs to review Care Plans at every Looked After Child Review and make certain the plan for permanence is addressed at the 2nd review with clear timescales for implementation of the permanence plan.
• Make sure that every child and young person is provided with information about the services to be provided and the independent support systems, through the Haringey’s Children’s Guide.
• Provide foster carers with supervision & support and learning & development opportunities which will enable them to promote positive outcomes in all areas of children and young people’s lives
• Employ skilled and competent social workers and ensure they make use of the council policies, procedures and systems effectively and equitably to increase the efficiency of the service so improving performance against agreed outcomes for children.
• Promote Haringey’s priorities for children and young people – as detailed in the Children and Young People’s Plan with a particular emphasis on promoting outcomes for children in care.

About the Team

The team provides social work / social care support to children, young people and their families. The children / young people we work with have profound disabilities which significantly impact on their ability to independently engage in services akin to their nondisabled peers.
Giving parent/ carers a break from the caring duties is an integral part of the support offered to families.
Much of the support offered is identified following the completion of a child and family assessment.
The disabled team works closely with our colleagues in health and special educational needs this ensures a multi-agency approach to supporting a disabled child / young person.

About You

These are the qualities we believe to be necessary to do this job:

• The candidate will be expected to have good understanding and be familiar with The Fostering Services (England) Regulations 2011 among other legal framework relevant to children and young people with disabilities.
• To promote a model of self-directed support with customers and carers and enable them to determine their own outcome-focussed solutions.
• To be reportable to the Disabled Children’s Service and the Fostering Service and be responsible for delivering the provision of comprehensive and effective social work in accordance with current legislation, council policy and best practice.
• To champion and develop Family Link as an effective specialist short break provision as part of the Disabled Children’s Service. To meet the current and future demands and needs of vulnerable children and young people.
• To work closely with the Fostering Service practitioners to support the matching of referrals to the services. Ensuring through case audit and report utilisation that carers records are up to date.
• To work in close partnership, encourage and maintain effective communications links across community partners and other areas of the local authority in order to promote good working relationships and continuity of quality care.
• To ensure that effective risk assessments are completed and that these are implemented to ensure the Safeguarding of vulnerable children and young people and that carers follow safe caring principles.
• To act as a role model and expert practitioner within the service, representing the social work profession effectively within a multidisciplinary environment.
• To be responsible for carer training and development plans.
• To be responsible for the management of information systems, ensuring that all information is used intelligently.
• Any other tasks duties or projects that may arise from time-to-time and that are commensurate with the general level of the role.