Family Intervention Specialist

Job description

Job responsibilities

KEY RESPONSIBILITIES

Main duties and responsibilities

1. Delivery of the option 2 model working intensively with families managing multiple high risk needs.

2. Following a whole family approach to deliver solution focused interventions that support families in meeting their individual goals for reducing risk of children being removed into local authority care.

3. To provide brief interventions to enable parents/carers to understand and deal with their substance misuse and its impact on their children and other family members.

4. Keep records of all work and produce weekly reports for case holding social workers and programme maintenance summary reports.

5. Completion of strengths charts and goal plans that are empowering for families meaning they need to engage family members of all ages.

6. Planning of your own diary to manage caseload and meet the needs of individual families and ensure that timeframes are adhered to for end of interventions and report deadlines.

7. To represent the service at both internal and external partnership meetings and attend child protection reviews, sharing outcomes from intervention and being part of risk management action planning.

8. Ensure that all adult and childrens safeguarding issues are dealt with in line with Staffordshires safeguarding policies and organisation policies and procedures.

9. Ensure practice promotes equality and diversity within all areas of work.

10. To develop and maintain positive and constructive working relationships with local community and voluntary groups, statutory agencies, and other relevant stakeholders.

11. To ensure that children and young people and their families are fully involved in and consulted about the projects work and to support them in representing their views.

12. Maintain an up-to-date knowledge of legislation which may affect service users and staff.

13. To provide a flexible service to families in line with their needs including evening and weekend work.

14. To lead on own specialist area which can include supervising students on placement, design and delivery of internal and external training or representing the service at key partnership meetings.

15. To support with the induction of new team members into the family and young peoples teams and across other Staffordshire teams if required. Providing shadowing opportunities for internal and external colleagues to support learning and development.

16. To complete file audits and support management audits where required.

17. To always ensure professional conduct when representing the service within the community, supporting families, attending meetings and any other communication

Systems and equipment

18. To contribute to the development of systems and interventions as and when required.

19. To familiarise and use I.T. equipment as provided by Inclusion and accurately record all required information.

20. To have skills for working on keyboards and using equipment remotely across a range of community hubs.

Decisions and judgements

21. To make decisions based on effective communication and risk management. To seek management advice where appropriate

22. To complete strengths-based assessments and safety plans alongside families with complex needs and where risk to lone work can be a factor for consideration. Safety planning can include exploring risky associates, access to weapons, drug dealing, domestic abuse, mental health, substance misuse, county lines, criminal and sexual exploitation, and behaviours placing children at significant risk of harm.

23. To work within the family home facilitating the completion of whole family strengths-based exercises. This requires the experience to judge what information is and is not encouraged for sharing within this setting to ensure safety of children and vulnerable adults within the home.

24. The ability to analyse information from intervention sessions from which decisions are made to escalate safeguarding risk and to use this for feeding into core group decision making around the welfare of the child/ren.

25. An ability to make safe decisions under pressure when working remotely across the county

26. To identify training needs and utilise supervision effectively.

27. To be aware of boundaries at all times.

28. To be responsible for your own security and safety and be fully compliant with trust policies.

Communication and relationships

29. To effectively communicate and work collaboratively with a range of people including service users, colleagues, external partners/providers to ensure the familys needs are met.

30. To work within and promote an integrated service.

31. To communicate sensitive information to multi-disciplinary partners which can include the police, education, social services, domestic abuse partners, mental health, and substance misuse teams. There will be a requirement to communicate this information at core groups and safeguarding partnership meetings.

32. To highlight sensitive information within case records, intervention and court reports.

33. To work autonomously across the county, being responsible for checking in with line managers and providing buddy support to colleagues.

34. To comment on policies and pathways that support service development

35. To be professional at all times, including whilst representing Inclusion at internal and external events.

36. To take part in appropriate training and seek to improve personal performance, contribution, knowledge and skills. Participate in appraisal, supervision and Learning & Development processes

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Physical demands of the job

37. To use IT equipment daily.

38. To be prepared to travel to various locations across the county to meet the needs of families.

39. To attend training and meetings in different geographical areas from the service.

40. To work flexible hours in line with service needs (i.e. evening, weekend and bank holidays as and when required).

41. This role delivers intensive intervention, going into family homes daily and the need to plan admin and break time. There are requirements for concentration during intervention delivery and when completing reports and updating risk assessments to timescales.

Most challenging/difficult parts of the job

42. Whilst a zero-tolerance policy to abuse is in place, there is potential for Family Intervention Specialists to be exposed to verbal and non-verbal aggressive or challenging behaviours, family members under the influence of drugs and alcohol, and adults and children/young people in vulnerable or distressing situations.

This can be a fast-paced work environment meaning that Family intervention specialist need to have excellent time management skills.

This role is not eligible for visa sponsorship. If it is identified that you require sponsorship to undertake this role your application may be withdrawn

Person Specification

Level 3 Health & Social Care or equivalent

Essential

• Level 3 Health & Social Care or equivalent

Desirable

• Level 3 Safeguarding

Experience

Essential

• Experience of working with drug and alcohol service

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

Inclusion

Address

Mellor House

Corporation Street

Stafford

ST16 3SR

Employer's website

https://www.mpft.nhs.uk (Opens in a new tab)