Job responsibilities
Care job family overview:
Support and assist the well-being of individuals and groups to assure their protection, security and
development
Safeguarding, protection and care.
Community, residential, day or field settings.
Ongoing risk/needs assessment of and advice for individuals/groups.
Specification of any non-council provision.
Individual or small group emphasis.
May involve personal care activities.
Likely to involve immediate response to client.
Service and Function Context:
The service is responsible for ensuring that children and young people involved in the youth justice
system or being exploited are provided with intervention and support to best meet their needs and to
ensure they have the best opportunities to succeed in life.
The Young Peoples Service covers key areas including:
The Youth Offending Team: this seeks to provide children and young people, particularly those who
are vulnerable with positive, preventative, out of court, and statutory intervention they need to
improve their safety and wellbeing, and prevent offending or re-offending. The service has a key
role in helping children, young people and their families to build resilience, overcome barriers, reduce
risky behaviours and achieve positive outcomes.
The impact of this service is to ensure:
Effective assessment of young people who have offended and management of risk and
safeguarding issues.
Effective supervision of young people who have been remanded to custody and those
requiring support in the community, as directed by the court.
Provision of effective pre-court interventions.
Supervision of young people who have been given court orders which are to be managed in
the community, including the provision of a lay youth panel to discharge the responsibilities of
Referral Orders.
Sentence planning for young people in custody and their supervision on release.
The Emerald team:
The service works with young people at risk or vulnerable to child sexual
exploitation and at risk of going missing, using a multi-disciplinary team approach it aims to impact by
reducing the risks young people face.
Adolescents at risk: those young people displaying concerning or risky behaviours that places them
at risk of criminal or sexual exploitation, at risk of offending, at risk of school exclusion due to their
behaviours.
The Young Peoples Service seeks to provide children and young people, particularly those who are
vulnerable, with positive, preventative, out of court, and statutory intervention they need to improve
their safety and wellbeing, prevent offending or re-offending, and reduce the risks associated with
criminal or sexual exploitation or going missing.
The Young Peoples Service has a key role in helping children, young people and their families to
build resilience, overcome barriers, reduce risky behaviours and achieve positive outcomes.
The Young Peoples Service is focussed on safeguarding and promoting the welfare of children
primarily aged 10-17. This involves leading the Team Around the Child process, prevention,
meaningful assessment using the YJB approved tool Asset Plus, successful interventions, multi agency liaison and joint working and where appropriate signposting to other services.
The service endeavours to empower children, young people and their families by keeping them at the
heart of service delivery and by enabling them to develop the capabilities they need to help
themselves, avoid offending/ re-offending, be self-sufficient and take control of their own lives.
Other key responsibilities include:
To prevent family breakdown.
To prevent children and families needing more intensive statutory services.
To deliver an effective family-based and relationship-based approach to enable children and
families to achieve positive outcomes.
To meet all relevant statutory responsibilities.
All staff in the service work constructively, collaboratively and effectively with a broad range of key
agencies delivering, for example, housing, domestic abuse, substance misuse, mental health,
education, finance, employment and/or emotional wellbeing support.
Job Purpose:
Young Peoples Social Workers will be deployed as part of Wiltshires Young Peoples Service,
located within the Councils Family and Childrens Service which has a role in leading, developing,
and enhancing targeted and specialist youth and childrens services.
This post works with families and young people who are involved/ at risk of entering the youth
justice system, displaying significantly vulnerabilities, going missing or at risk of/ being exploited
(sexually/criminally).
Specific duties and responsibilities include:
To be the primary worker with case responsibility for adolescent children in need and children
in need of protection (predominantly aged 10-17 who are at risk of or experiencing criminal or
sexual exploitation, offending, going missing or displaying significant vulnerabilities).
To operate within the council policy and keep up to date with social work methods, practice
developments, new legislation and procedures, including the Childrens Act 2004.
To be responsible for the day to day interpretation of and implementation of statutory duties
and departmental policy and procedures in the provision of services to children and young
people.
To be allocated work from the team leaders or any person delegated to act on their behalf
based on eligibility criteria and to hold case management responsibility for this work.
To complete enquiries and assess, the needs of and risks to vulnerable children and young
people in a timely manner giving due consideration to the wishes and views of the child and the
childs family. This will include the completion of S47 enquiries, enquiries, joint investigation
alongside Police colleagues, single assessments/ specialist CSE/CCE/ AIM assessments
single assessments and engaging service users and other relevant persons in the work base,
homes or any other appropriate venue e.g. hospital, school etc.
To take appropriate action to assess and minimise any identified concern or risk to
children/young people in accordance with the requirements and timescales of assessment
frameworks, child protection procedures and looked after children legislation and procedures.
To draw up and implement, with the child/young person and their family/carers, an appropriate
plan to address identified issues and to maximise the participation of service users and carers
in this process ensuring that social work intervention is ongoing only when necessary in
peoples lives.
To carry out regular reviews of individual plans, record outcomes and formulate revised plans
which are outcome focused.
To convene meetings e.g. core groups to assist in the implementation and review of plans for
vulnerable children.
To write reports for child protection conferences, planning meetings, looked after children
reviews, legal meetings and court hearings and attend these as appropriate.
To have a creative approach to meeting need and to ensure local provision, wherever possible,
in order to meet identified need within available resources.
To have a clear understanding of and ability to manage within financial constraints in service
delivery.
To work collaboratively and effectively with Young People Support Workers, Youth Justice
Workers, YOT Officers, No Wrong Door practitioners and colleagues across Families and
Childrens Services on achieving shared family goals.
To work proactively and in partnership with other agencies to plan and deliver coordinated
services to children, young people and their families/carers which promotes and focuses on
positive outcomes.
Actively engage and contribute, when necessary, to Local Allocation Group case discussions
(or other similarly named mechanisms/panels).
To maintain accurate and effective electronic recording of information and action taken in the
course of casework.
To understand the need for and contribute to the achievement of team and departmental
performance targets in order to achieve positive outcomes for children and young people.
To maintain confidentiality of information acquired in the course of undertaking duties for the
department whilst operating in the fullest cooperation with other agencies to ensure that
children are appropriately safeguarded.
To contribute to team processes in a positive and appropriate manner, by attending team
meetings and undertaking any necessary and appropriate team duties.
To make an active contribution to the development of service delivery through the sharing of
knowledge, information and skills.
To take responsibility for personal professional development through the utilisation of relevant
practice research/developments, legislation, participative supervision and appraisal processes.
To undertake further training which is consistent with the needs of the individual.
and the organisation, as agreed with the manager.
To work within an equal opportunities and anti-discriminatory framework. Value diversity within
the team and in contact with other professionals, children, young people and families.
Specific requirements for this post:
Flexible working
There will be a requirement to occasionally work with children and families when they most need it
which may be outside of normal working hours, including weekends. The number of out of hours
worked will not exceed 10% of the total contracted hours per week.
