West London Family Support Worker

Job description

Job responsibilities

Job Title:West London Family Support Worker

Team/Directorate:Family Support Team

Salary range/pay band:Band 4: £31,691

Reports to:Lead for Counselling and Family Support

Direct reports:N/A

Hours:37.5 hours per week

Location:Base: Shooting Star House (Hampton) and work in the community

Job holder:Vacant

Introduction to Shooting Star Childrens Hospices

Shooting Star Childrens Hospices (SSCH) are a leading childrens hospice charity caring for babies, children and young people with life-limiting conditions, and their families.We support families across Surrey, Northwest and Southwest London from diagnosis to end of life and throughout bereavement with a range of nursing, practical, emotional and medical care.

At the heart of the hospice are our dedicated clinical staff. Their exceptional commitment and professionalism is commented on by so many of the supported children and their families. We have a reputation for delivering high quality care.

Introduction to Team

SSCH provide care to children and young people with life-limiting conditions, and family members known to the hospice. Depending on their need, hospice families access respite care, community nursing interventions and specialist palliative care. All families can access SSCHs core psychosocial care from point of referral/diagnosis, at end of life and bereavement care provided to the family for 3 years and 3 months after the death of their child. This encompasses a holistic and flexible offer of family support, a pathway of care through bereavement and a substantial program of therapeutic support groups and events provided at both hospices, in order that families can benefit from building a network of support with others who have lived experience.

Family Support Workers (FSW) are the frontline of our psychosocial care. Each FSW holds a caseload of end-of-life and bereaved families. They get to know their families, and check-in regularly with phone calls and home visits and can provide enhanced emotional support where required through more regular contact and interventions. Our FSWs inform families about the different psychosocial care and many services they can access at Shooting Star, assess their needs and make recommendations to our specialist psychosocial MDT. They work hard to support families of different ethnicities and families living in poverty, so that our service is as inclusive as possible.

Our dedicated team of FSWs work closely with our Therapists, Counsellors, Social Workers, Transition Team, our Support Groups & Events Team and our nursing teams. Weekly specialist psychosocial MDT meetings bring the team together to think of ways to help families in crisis. The work is varied and creative, taking place at the hospices, in family homes and hospitals, allowing the support to be where the families need it. Our Family Support Workers are hugely appreciated by the families we support.

Main duties and key responsibilities

Family Support Worker duties and key responsibilities:

To help children, young people and families receive holistic care that considers all aspects of health and wellbeing, from the point of referral through the three years and three months after a child dies.

To build connections with families from different backgrounds, delivering culturally competent care.

To be a first responder at the time of a childs death, providing emotional and practical support.

To be the allocated worker for end-of-life and bereaved families

To conduct pre-bereavement risk assessments that identify risk and important pre-emptive work and action appropriate care plans in bereavement.

To carry out memory-making with skill and respect, with use of correct materials and personalisation within the design where possible.

To visit family homes to carry out initial assessments for those referred to the specialist bereavement service (and those for whom an enhanced pathway is required). To gather relevant details about a family, and support the completion of assessment tools screening for psychological distress and safeguarding concerns.

To present cases at the Specialist Psychosocial Multi-Disciplinary Team (SPMDT) welcoming and responding to issues identified by the wider team.

To deliver core care outlined in the bereavement pathway, ensuring touchpoints enable a re-assessment of needs and communication of the service offer.

To design, propose and deliver bespoke bereavement plans for families requiring a higher level of care, suggesting frequency of contact and support measures. To seek longer-term solutions to benefit the family. To personalize care thoughtfully, in order that families of all backgrounds are able to engage with support that is helpful to them. To take time to transition families from our bereavement service to appropriate support in their locality, personalized to their needs.

To assess, propose and deliver FSW interventions such as Emotional Support Plans and Targeted Interventions,

To discuss all work with children, young people and families openly in SPMDT, clinical supervision and with appropriate professionals, enabling reflective practice and development of knowledge, understanding and skills.

To bring work to the SPMDT on completion for review.

To act as an advocate for families, making sure their views and needs are heard.

Teamwork

To participate in the duty roster as either first or second duty. Responsibilities include answering queries from families seeking support in person or via the Family Support Line and email, acting as referral response for post-death referrals and daily check-ins of families resident at Christophers or those utilising facilities.

To be part of the events teams for a variety of groups and events for supported and bereaved children and their families.

To support communication with families concerning event attendance, to strive to increase engagement and access. To ensure all services are inclusive and accessible to families.

To strive to engage with statutory partners through proactive communication, joint caseload reviews, attending and participate in internal and external meetings, and contributing to external professional multi-disciplinary discussions.

To form effective inter-agency collaboration with schools, social care, GPs, hospital trusts and other agencies.

To ensure that the wider team is informed of any relevant changes in the family, child or young persons needs or circumstances.

To act as an ambassador for Shooting Stars Specialist Bereavement Service, supporting other Named Team Members with their learning and delivery of the bereavement pathway, and continually seeking ways to improve quality.

To attend inter-agency meetings such as Child Death Review meetings and Child in Need meetings.

Learning and safeguarding compliance

To complete competency skills development as required for the role.

To engage in learning and development of knowledge and understanding to enhance SSCH delivery of psychosocial care.

To be a responsible and independent learner, taking responsibility for identifying learning opportunities.

To share skills, knowledge and learning with members of the direct and wider team.

To safeguard children, young people and adults, adhering to Safeguarding policies and the mental health escalation pathway.

To ensure accurate and contemporaneous notes and records of all contacts are recorded within the electronic notes system.

a) Other duties

The post holder must be able and willing to get to and work in both hospices.

The post holder will need to travel extensively throughout the SSCH catchment.

The hours are predominantly worked 9am to 5pm.

Twice a month, the FSW will be scheduled to work a weekend day (with advance notice). This is in place of a Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday or Friday that week.

The post holder must hold a driving license and be able and willing to work from Shooting Star House (Hampton) and Christophers (Guildford), and to be able to travel when required throughout the Shooting Star catchment.

The post holder will be required to apply for a Disclosure & Barring Service (DBS) check.

The post holder will be working in a developing environment, and he/she will therefore be expected to undertake other appropriate duties as required for the effective operation of Shooting Star Childrens Hospices.

Person Specification

General attributes

Essential

• Emotionally intelligent and resilient
• Relatability and likeability that would enable children, young people, and parents to welcome support from Shooting Stars Specialist Bereavement Service.
• A caring and reassuring approach that would help a family feel safe in the face of trauma/death.
• A passion for ongoing learning and development.
• Ability to organise self, methodical and able to multi-task
• Good literacy skills. Proficient in the use Microsoft 365 suite (Word, PowerPoint, Excel, Teams).
• Car owner/driver with full UK drivers licence

Qualifications

Essential

• Driving license (and car owner)

Desirable

• NVQ Level 2 in Health and Social Care
• Social Worker or counselling qualification
• Mental health first aid qualification/training
• Grief training

Experience

Essential

• 2 years of experience working with individuals experiencing hardship, trauma, mental health difficulties or social vulnerabilities.
• Experience of managing a caseload and working alongside other professionals to find best outcomes.
• Confidence to be a hospice first-responder, for example to be sent to a family in hospital of a child who is imminently dying or has just died.
• Awareness of issues of equality and diversity, with an ability to personalise care and enhance accessibility, removing barriers that may prevent engagement.
• Understanding of boundaries around the role in relation to children, young people and families.
• Ability to anticipate risk and think creatively about support measures that will enable the best outcomes for families.
• Knowledge of Safeguarding procedures and experience in raising concern appropriately.

Desirable

• Ability to speak a language additional to English, for example Punjabi or Gujarati.
• Professional experience working with bereaved families in a statutory or voluntary setting.
• Previous paid or voluntary work supporting families who experience the expected or unexpected death of a baby, child or young person.
• Experience of designing and facilitating support groups and events.
• Experience of volunteering or working within hospice care.
• Experience of working with individuals who experience suicidality.

Disclosure and Barring Service Check

This post is subject to the Rehabilitation of Offenders Act (Exceptions Order) 1975 and as such it will be necessary for a submission for Disclosure to be made to the Disclosure and Barring Service (formerly known as CRB) to check for any previous criminal convictions.

Employer details

Employer name

Shooting Star Children’s Hospices

Address

Shooting Star Childrens Hospice

The Avenue

Hampton

Middlesex

TW12 3RA

Employer's website

https://www.shootingstar.org.uk/ (Opens in a new tab)