Adolescent Response Practitioner

Role Responsibility

Do you have mediation skills?  
  

Kent County Council have designed an exciting Adolescent Response Team to enhance our service to adolescents and their families.  The service will provide non-case holding additional support which prevents adolescents from coming in to care and to address the risks to them which come from outside the family home. 

We’re more interested in who you are, than in what you’ve studied. We welcome applicants with and without qualifications. If you can engage adolescents; manage conflict and understand how risks from peer groups and in the community can impact on young people, then one of our roles could be for you.

Adolescent Response 

 The Adolescent Response Practitioners will provide non-case holding intervention to adolescents and their carers at times of crisis during which adolescents are most likely to either enter or to move care arrangements. This will necessitate working weekends & after school hours, into early evenings (until 8pm) on a rota basis. Some of this work is planned with case holders, and some will be on-call to respond to emerging crisis.  It is anticipated that the ‘response’ aspect of the service will operate during school holidays, at weekends and after school hours until 8pm, not overnight.  

The County Out of Hours service will remain the emergency escalation route (for example, if a young person needs to come in to care) for weekends and evenings.  

 Practitioners need to be solution-focussed and have excellent mediation and conflict management skills, to intervene safely and effectively in times of crisis.

Contextual Safeguarding 

The Adolescent Response Practitioners will work alongside partner agencies to identify, assess, respond, and review contextual/extra-familial risks for adolescents, such as enhancing safety in community locations and tackling issues through bespoke, targeted intervention to adolescents.  

This post is considered by KCC to be a customer-facing position. The Council therefore has a statutory duty under Part 7 of the Immigration Act (2016) to ensure that post holders have a command of spoken English/Welsh sufficient for the effective performance of the job requirements. The appropriate standards are set out in the Job Description/Person Specification.

This post is subject to an Enhanced Disclosure Application to the Disclosure and Barring Service.

Interviews will be held on the 22nd July and 24th July 2025.

Contact Details

If you require any additional information, please contact Helen Burton at helen.burton@kent.gov.uk

About the Company

Work that works for you and us - let's talk flexibility!

KCC is committed to building a workforce which reflects the diversity of the county's working residents, encouraging applications from people of all ages, abilities, genders, sexual orientations, ethnic backgrounds, faiths and those with caring responsibilities, and aspires to create an inclusive workplace where everyone can be themselves at work.

Please note - if you are interested, please apply soon as possible as the closing date for this advert may be earlier than stated should a number of suitably qualified candidates apply.