Adolescent Response Practitioner

Role Responsibility

Do you have mediation skills?   
Do you want to work flexibly?
 

Kent County Council have designed a new and 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.

The Adolescent Response Team has two main functions:

1. To manage contextual/extra-familial risks for adolescents
   Practitioners will assess locations which present risk to adolescents (such as community spaces) and collaborate with multi-agency partners to enhance safety and tackle issues. This is a hands-on role which will engage with adolescents in the community.
2. To provide effective non-case holding intervention to adolescents and their carers at those times of crisis during which adolescents are most likely to either enter or to move care arrangements.  This requires solution-focussed practitioners with excellent mediation and conflict management skills, who can work flexibly, including weekends, early evenings, and in typical holiday periods.  Some of this work is planned with case holders, with elements of weekend on-call (not overnight) demand, to respond to emerging crisis.  

The teams will operate weekdays, weekends and evenings, and we’re keen to explore with you what hours work for both you and us. We can offer full-time and part time opportunities with flexible and remote working, with scope to work across North & West, or South & East of Kent.

We currently have positions available for the role of Adolescent Response Practitioner.

We’re trialling this new service for 2 years and are looking for passionate, motivated, and skilled practitioners at a range of levels and experience to join us during this exciting time.  We can consider secondment opportunities for the right candidates.

An Enhanced Disclosure and Barring Service check is needed but having a criminal record will not necessarily prevent you from working with us. We consider how long ago your offences were, your attitudes to offending and what you’ve learnt from your experiences. 

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

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. 

If you are interested, please apply as soon as possible as the closing date for this advert may be brought forward if/when a number of suitably qualified candidates apply.

Contact Details

Please contact Nancy Tugwell on Nancy.Tugwell@kent.gov.uk to obtain the job descriptions and person specifications for these posts, or to find out more. 

About the Company

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 and faiths, and aspires to create an inclusive workplace where everyone can be themselves at work.

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