Family Finding Social Worker/Senior Practitioner

About Coram

Coram is committed to improving the lives of the UK’s most vulnerable children and young people.

We support children and young people from birth to independence, creating a change that lasts a lifetime.

Coram is the UK’s oldest children’s charity founded by Thomas Coram in London helping vulnerable children and young people since 1739. Today, the Coram group helps more than one million children, young people, families and professionals every year by providing access to the skills and opportunities they need to thrive.

Coram Ambitious for Adoption Regional Adoption Agency [RAA] is a commissioned Voluntary Adoption Agency delivering statutory adoption support services and family finding for a number of local authority partners. The family finding post holder will be located in Hillingdon, as part of the wider RAA partnership located across London and surrounding areas. The hub services for the RAA include the recruitment, assessment and support of Coram approved adopters, which are located at the Coram Campus in London.

The post holder will be employed by Coram, a service with a long track record of serving children well and outstanding ratings from Ofsted. The task for the Regional Adoption Agency is to ensure that all children who have a plan for adoption are given every chance to have that ambition realised and when placed in a permanent family receive the relevant support as their needs change and develop.

Main duties and responsibilities:

•  To undertake comprehensive assessments of child’s permanence needs, including risks, complexities to inform family finding professional activities alongside the child’s social worker.
•  Undertake interviews, observation and gather information from children, foster carers, adoptive families, birth parents [as appropriate] and other relevant agencies including health professionals. Provide comprehensive analysis of need, evaluating and summarising information to provide a holistic assessment and understanding of the child.
•  To provide written and verbal reports which are concise, informative and based on analysis and research including relevant court reports and statements provided in a timely manner and of a high professional standard.
•  Advice and support to the child’s social worker on writing the child’s permanence report and matching paperwork.
•  To attend child permanency planning meetings, matching / introductions meetings and child appreciation days, as appropriate, and contribute to a review of permanency plans.
•  To hold a family finding caseload and develop appropriate adoption support or other relevant packages, consulting with others including the Senior Practitioner to meet the needs of the child and to optimise child development and placement stability.
• To work with the Senior Practitioner across children’s teams to identify children who could be suitable for an early permanence placement or foster to adopt arrangement and attend relevant legal planning meetings.
•  Create profiles of children for advertising on relevant platforms.
•  To ensure timely referrals are made to the Hub Recruitment and Assessment Team for a possible match.  Liaise with the relevant parties, read and share PARs and alongside the Senior Practitioner LAC SW select families to visit.
• Operate within a multi-professional environment including health and education services and clinical therapists consulting and taking advice where applicable to meet the needs of the child.
•  Support service developments within the local system of delivery and with participant authorities to derive the best outcomes for children achieving high standards of professional practice and undertaking projects of work including tools for Direct work and contributing within the environment of the practice pathway.
•  Keep up to date on evidence for what works, non-sequential matching approaches and best practices in optimising successful matching of all including harder to place children using a range of approaches.
• Ensure all matters in respect of child safeguarding are responded to promptly, effectively and escalated in line with the child with the relevant Local Authority and Coram safeguarding procedures.
•  To maintain an up to date working knowledge of legislation, statutory and policy frameworks and regulatory practice codes in order to ensure that statutory responsibilities are undertaken for children.
•  Ensure high quality recording is completed in a timely manner, is accurate and up to date and providing concise and accurate information using the relevant case management recording systems in place for the regional agency.
•  To keep up to date with national research including learning from regional agency performance nationwide, service feedback and coproduction and ensure practice is legal and safe at all times including data handling, confidentiality and regulatory requirements.
•  To operate competently and confidently in initiating, developing and sustaining internal and external working relationships with other professionals, foster carers and potential adopter and partner local authorities and the VAA remit for the delivery of suitable adopters.
•  To be involved and contribute to the monitoring of practice standards, meeting the key performance indicators for the regional  agency and engaging in internal quality case audits and the statutory inspection process on outcomes of the service.

Coram is an equal opportunities employer and we believe a diverse workforce enables us to improve the services to the children and families we help. We are genuinely committed to encouraging candidates from all sections of the community we seek to support. This includes those from, Asian, African, Caribbean and other minority ethnic backgrounds, those that identify as LGBTQ+, those with disabilities, those with lived experience of care, those with neuro-diversity, and those from other groups who are underrepresented at Coram.

If applicants feel comfortable, we would encourage them to draw on lived experience as well as professional experience in their personal statement as part of their application.

We are committed to the safeguarding of children and where appropriate will require the successful applicant to undertake a check from the Disclosure and Barring Service.

Registered Charity No. 312278.