Kinship Care Support Officer

This role is for a Kinship Care Support Officer, it is a part time post of 20 hours per week. The postholder will be employed to join our team as a Kinship Care Support Officer.  The role will be to work alongside social workers, Senior Social Workers, as well as the Pod Manager to assist in the Support Service section of our busy team.  The postholder does not need to be social work qualified to apply for this post, however experience of working within Children's Services and Kinship Care is beneficial.

Working with Kinship Carers you will provide support with Adoption Support Fund applications for therapeutic work for families and the carers post Court Order.  You will also work with the Senior Social Worker managing the Support Service to assist and respond to enquiries into the team. as well as open cases. 

You will provide support services to Kinship Carers to promote placement stability and enable positive outcomes for children subject to Special Guardianship Orders.

You will be involved in working with Kinship Carers who are looking after children under Special Guardianship Orders. You will assess the support needs of complex Kinship placements to determine the most appropriate intervention to enhance the quality of care provided to children previously in care.

You will deliver focussed and specialist interventions including direct work with children and their carers to promote placement stability and positive outcomes for children previously in care

You will assess and support Kinship Carers within this role, you will use the telephone, video conferencing as well as undertake home or office visits to talk with carers and professionals to provide this advice and guidance.

You will deliver training to Kinship Carers to enable them to better understand their role in Kinship Care to further facilitate and enable stable and robust placements for the children in their care.

Working with the professional network around a child you will have a good communication style and the ability to work with different people in different settings. You will have good writing and analytical skills and able to write reports and assessments about carers within our IT systems.

Please read our Apply for a job at the council (brighton-hove.gov.uk) pages carefully. They give you all the guidance you need to complete your application as well as information on what will happen after you’ve submitted your application and at interview.

As part of your application, you will need to complete your education and work history and provide answers to some shortlisting questions. Your answers to the shortlisting questions are the most important part of your application as they will be used in the shortlisting process to assess whether you meet the essential requirements for the role that are set out in the person specification and to decide whether you should be offered an interview. Before you start your application, please read our guidance here (Shortlisting questions guidance (brighton-hove.gov.uk) as this gives important advice which will increase your chance of success in the shortlisting process.

Should you wish to discuss the post then please contact Lucy George Pod Manager on lucy.george@brighton-hove.gov.uk or Karnjit Kandola Pod manager on karnjit.kandola@brighton-hove.gov.uk