Duty Support Worker - Team around the child
| Posting date: | 20 June 2025 |
|---|---|
| Hours: | Full time |
| Closing date: | 20 July 2025 |
| Location: | Leicester, LE3 8RA |
| Company: | Leicestershire County Council |
| Job type: | Permanent |
| Job reference: | 5543 |
Summary
Organisation: Leicestershire County Council
Work Location: County Hall Glenfield Leicester LE3 8RA
Worker Category: Hybrid Worker- working at home/in the community and within the office
Salary: £34,350-£37,950 per annum (pro-rata for part-time)
Working Hours: 37 Per week
Contract Type: Permanent
Closing Date: 9th July 2025
Interview Date(s): 29th July 2025
Are you passionate about working with foster carers and helping to improve the outcomes for our children in care through careful and considered matching to their foster carers?
Are you interested in supporting the well-being of foster carers and their children?
Do you want to work within a busy and supportive team which is committed to ensuring that our children in care receive a high standard of care and our foster carers feel well supported and have the necessary skills to care for children?
If so this role is for you:-
About the Role
We are looking to recruit a Duty Support Worker to join our busy team which focusses on supporting mainstream foster carers care for our looked after children. As a Duty Support Worker your primary responsibility will be attending to the referrals for our looked after children and matching the children to our in-house mainstream foster carers.
You will work within a dedicated duty team to ensure that children are placed with foster carers that have the skill base and knowledge to meet their needs and ensure that any matches are made in a trauma informed manner.
As a Duty Support Worker you will need to develop good working relationships with our foster carers so excellent communication skills are essential.
You will develop positive working relationships with other service areas and teams to ensure that placements are made in the best interests of the child / carer.
Placement matching to carers approval and skill set is fundamental to safer placements, you will work as part of the team around the child to support this.
We also collate data against our utilisation and you will provide this information to our Improvement Cycle Meetings.
Our Duty Support Workers are also expected to hold additional responsibilities within the team such as working with our birth children, supporting carers in a more direct manner or taking responsibility for a service area such as EDI. This will be agreed once you are in post and in line with your skills and interests.
As a team we hold a number of events throughout the year and it will be part of your role to help to arrange and facilitate these, some of which are outside of the normal office hours.
A DBS enhanced check for a regulated activity is required for this post.
For information on our approach to the recruitment of ex-offenders, please see our policy statement.
About You
Please refer to these 7 points when making your application, giving examples as evidence of how you meet them
To apply for this post, you must:
- Hold an NVQ level 3 or equivalent and relevant experience.
- Have experience of working with service users from ethnic minorities and those who have a protected characteristic.
- Demonstrate an awareness of working with foster carers and Children in Care alongside an understanding of Fostering Regulations, National Minimum Standards and safeguarding procedures
- Have knowledge of the triggers, factors and barriers faced by children and young people in care and we can support them and their carers to overcome these barriers.
- The ability to communicate clearly and accurately, both orally and in writing, with a wide range of people, including representatives from other agencies, using skills of negotiation and persuasion. In addition you must have the ability to prioritise effectively across a wide range of competing demands to meet deadlines.
- The ability to report and analyse data within a service to evidence compliance with aims and objectives.
- The ability to use information technology applications e.g. Microsoft Outlook, Word and database applications as relevant to the department.
You must also have an understanding of, and commitment to, equality, diversity and inclusion.
In addition, we also expect you to share our commitment to our values and will ask you to evidence when you have demonstrated them as part of the selection process.
Reasonable adjustments will be considered for applicants with a disability.
Interested in Flexible Working?
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. This may include requests for term-time working, part-time hours, compressed hours, flexible start and finish times, home/remote working, etc.
Every role within the Council has a defined working style which determines where they can work. The worker category applicable to this post is detailed in the above advert. You can find out more about our worker categories in the Our Working Styles page on our career site.
For more information or an informal discussion, please contact:
Rachael Young, Team Manager, Team around the Child
Telephone:0116 305 4482
Email: Rachael.Young@leics.gov.uk
How to Apply
Leicestershire County Council is an inclusive organisation which is on a journey to embed and celebrate equality, diversity and inclusion at every level. We warmly welcome and encourage applications from people of all backgrounds, as having a diverse workforce with different perspectives and ideas is fundamental to our values and enriches the services we offer our communities. We particularly welcome applicants from Ethnically Diverse and LGBTQ+ communities and people with disabilities to create a balanced workforce and one that reflects the communities we serve. Applicants with a disability who meet the criteria listed in the 'About You' section above will be offered an interview under the Disability Confident Employer Scheme.
To apply for this job, please click on the apply button. You will need to upload a supporting statement as part of your application which explains how you meet the criteria listed in the 'About You' section above. For more information, see the How to Apply section on our career site.
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.
If you have any technical issues when trying to apply for this post please contact our Employee Service Centre by raising a ticket via our online portal: https://emss.org.uk/support.
By applying for this post, you agree to our Terms and Conditions.
Proud member of the Disability Confident employer scheme