Early Help Advisor / Supervisor for Yardley & Hodge Hill Early Help

We are currently looking for a Project Worker 2 to join our Early Help - Yardley and Hodge Hill Localities.

Initial Location of Post

Fox Hollies Children's Centre, 419 Fox Hollies Road, Birmingham, B27 7QA.

Objectives of the Early Help Service

Yardley and Hodge Hill Early Help are two of ten Early Help Localities across the city of Birmingham lead by Voluntary and Community Sector organisations (VCS) alongside Birmingham Children's Trust (BCT). The aim of the provision is to build capacity within local communities to ensure that children, young people and families have access to the right support at the right time before issues and concerns escalate.

Outcomes 

Our Early Help Advisors provide “light touch work” with families. This can be one off interactions and on-going support/intervention for a suggested maximum of four to six weeks. The role can involve; some introductory and exit scaling work with parents (outcomes wheel), referral completion, signposting to families, building trusting relationships with families, children and young people – using mixture of remote (by phone and email) contact and direct work and home visits. Relationships are built through empathy, listening, sound knowledge and understanding of local and national resources and responses to be able to respond to need. You should be confident in meeting with families in community spaces, schools and their homes when needed.

You will respond effectively and in a timely manner to needs as identified in Family Connect Forms referred into the service and tasks set by team manager as well as those needs that arise directly from families. Where applicable you will assist with identifying and speaking with the most appropriate person (such as a school) to undertake Early Help Assessments and Our Family Plans, so you will need to build rapport with families and professionals working with them.  You will record and report and concerns and explore any barriers with colleagues and manager. You will be able to make clear and meaningful case recordings.

You will work well remotely and independently as you do alongside Early Help colleagues in shared office space, and be able to manage your time well, whilst being motivated to make a difference to the families and children you support.

Initial Specific Responsibilities 

• To assist parents and carers to engage with and utilise personal, professional and local community networks to develop solutions to meet their personal aspirations and needs.
• Offer meaningful contact (communication) with families whether by phone, email, or in person.
• Write high quality and timely case notes and assessments using ECINS and other recording systems – to evidence work completed and the story of families through Early Help.
• To be able to develop rapport and understanding with families using excellent phone manner and verbal communication.
• Speak to schools and other professionals supporting a family as part of a multi-agency approach, including, collaborating with schools to encourage them to complete an Early Help Assessment and to offer to contribute to this via your support of families.
• Make referrals to third party organisations to support a family's needs e.g. to Shelter, DWP or Early Help services such as Early Help Mentoring.
• Develop an informed understanding of the key issues within the local area for Children Young People and Families
• Ability to work independently on a day-to-day basis and use own initiative whether working from home or offices (role will involve a combination).
• Able to work closely with other Early Help Advisors.
• Work with an understanding of the importance of consent in Early Help and an awareness of safeguarding issues and procedures, following them as required.
• To support other professionals across the locality to find solutions and support for families.
• To cover the duty role and phone line to ensure that enquiries into the locality are responded to in a timely manner.
• To provide advice, information and guidance to families to enable them to access relevant support to meet their needs.
• Provide support to the Team Manager and other Early Help colleagues to promote the work of the Early Help partnership and share good practice.
• To attend if/as requested allocations meetings and provide relevant information to progress support to families.
• Attend relevant Early Help meetings and training courses in the course of the work.
• Keep up to date on support and funds available for families to be able to offer robust support and advice.
• Liaise with Early Help Locality Lead to identify priorities funding applications.
• Support the production of promotional and publicity materials as required.
• Support the evaluation strategy and identification of case studies which contribute to the monitoring of the Early Help Offer
• Have an understanding of the lived experience of individuals from Black, Asian and Minority Ethnic backgrounds.
• To support induction/training of new staff
• To support staff supervisions
• To support with case screening for TAFN (Team Around Family Network) meetings
• To support with note taking at TAFN (Team Around Family Network) meetings

Education/Knowledge (additional to the Person Specification)

• Relevant Professional Qualification in relation to working with children, young people and families e.g. Social Care, Youth or Community Work
• In addition to experience with Microsoft packages, prior experience with some or all of the following is considered highly desirable: OpenText – Content Server, ECINS, RMM, RIO, etc.
• An in-depth knowledge and understanding of issues and challenges affecting families, financial difficulties, non-school attendance, worklessness, offending, emotional well-being and mental health, domestic abuse, impact of trauma etc. and suitable responses to these.
• Good working knowledge of services, resources and support available for Children and Families in Yardley, Hodge Hill and Birmingham would be highly
• Driver with car and/or ability to travel around Yardley / Hodge Hill as well as wider Birmingham effectively would be important.

Please note due to the high volume of applications for some posts, this advert might close before the displayed closing date. We recommend that you apply for this role as soon as possible.

Pay & Reward Framework

We know that our colleagues go above and beyond in delivering our vital work, driven by their passion and commitment to Barnardo's values.  We also know that we can only realise our ambitions and achieve better outcomes for more children, thanks to the talent, hard work and creativity of our people. 

For all these reasons, we are committed to a new approach to pay and reward, to ensure it is fair, attractive and progressive, which was rolled out in April 2023. This is a positive change for the charity, and a part of our People & Culture Strategy. It will assist us in supporting colleagues to belong, thrive and grow in their colleague journey at Barnardo's and in time will offer clear routes of progression for colleagues in both their career and their pay. 

Whilst the full pay band and salary range is advertised, our approach to starting salaries is to appoint between the minimum to mid-point of the pay band – this ensures that pay steps are available to reward our colleagues annually based on their contribution to excellence and alignment to our values and behaviours.  More details on Barnardo's pay framework can be found upon application. 

Benefits

Workplace Offer: What it means for you

Our hybrid working initiative is based on trust, flexibility and empowerment. We understand our workplace offer means different things to different people, and we encourage those conversations. This may mean working at one of our stores, services, working at home, in the community, at one of our Collaboration Hubs or depending on the role any combination of these. Please read through the advert carefully to understand the remits of hybrid working that will be specific to the role.

• Barnardo's believe in creating equality of opportunity in the workplace and supporting people to manage their work-life balance; we are therefore open to offering flexible working arrangements.
• Annual Leave entitlement for full-time colleagues is 26 days per annum, increasing to 27 days per annum, after 3 years Barnardo's service, 29 days per annum, after 5 years Barnardo's service and 30 days per annum, after 7 years Barnardo's service. Those working less than full time are entitled to the same level of holiday pro rata
• The ability to buy up to another 5 days annual leave via our Buy Your Leave scheme
• A host of family friendly leave options including company Maternity Paternity and Adoption pay; together with all family additional leave options
• Service related sick pay from day 1
• Access to a Group Personal Pension with a matched 4% or 6% contribution from Barnardo's. Ability to pay via salary sacrifice to garner both tax and NI savings on your own contribution
• Death in service cover of 4x annual earnings for all staff contributing to our Group Personal Pension
• Cycle2work scheme
• Interest free season ticket loans
• Discounts and cashback from at high street shops including major supermarkets, cinemas, gyms, leisure/theme parks, holidays and much more via our Benefit Portal
• 20% discount at Barnardo's stores
• Opportunity to purchase a health cash plan to claim towards dental, glasses, therapy etc
• Free access to round the clock employee assistance program for advice and support
• Access to Barnardo's Learning and Development offer

*T&C's apply based on contract

About Barnardo's

We are committed to being an inclusive employer and cultivating a culture where everyone can belong and thrive through inclusion and connectivity. We want our workforce to be reflective of the communities we work with, and for equality, diversity and inclusion to be embedded in everything we do. We are a Disability Confident Leader, are progressing our ambition to be an anti-racist organisation with Anti-Racism Commitments and actions in place and have networks for colleagues who are disabled, LGBT+, Black and Minoritised Ethnic and Women. We particularly encourage applications from Black and Minoritised Ethnic and/or disabled candidates who are currently underrepresented in our workforce. For disabled applicants, we offer reasonable adjustments throughout the recruitment process.  

Our basis and values