Unit Early Help Worker

Role Responsibility

Our Vision is that every child and young person, from pre-birth to age 25, and their family, who needs early help services will receive them in a timely and responsive way, so that they are safeguarded, their educational, social and emotional needs are met and outcomes are good, and they are able to contribute positively to their communities now and in the future, including their active engagement in learning and employment.

To ensure that those who need more intensive support receive it in a timely and responsive way, we have an integrated methodology, identifying levels of need, working collaboratively with all services and with families to develop positive and sustainable change and support mechanisms. 

About the role:

Working with a team using a systemic approach, the unit undertakes casework with a range of families with children of all ages requiring intensive support for multiple and often diverse issues. These can include; domestic violence, prevention of the need for statutory social care intervention, children and young people experiencing significant attendance or behaviour difficulties at school, additional needs as well as step-down and step across cases from Children’s Social Work Team. The Early Help Units work closely with both open access and children’s social work services to ensure an integrated approach and collaborate with a range of partners in the wider community to build capacity and support sustainable change for families.

About you:

We’re looking for a motivated team member to work as an Early Help worker within an Early Help Team. You would be expected to manage a case load of complex cases, providing a high quality, effective and responsive service for children, young people and their families, targeting support as required at critical times and stages of development. 

If you have experience of assessing needs, planning, delivering and reviewing a programme of support for families, working to high service level standards, we’d like to hear from you. This is crucial and often demanding role, to be successful you will be both an excellent team player and autonomous; able to engage young people and families from a diverse range of backgrounds, and have exceptional communication skills, both verbally and in writing. An understanding of good parenting strategies and safeguarding thresholds is imperative. You will need excellent IT skills, including strong experience in use of a range of Microsoft/technical applications and be quick to learn new systems for case management purposes. You will be flexible and creative in your approach and committed to develop new ways of working. You will be willing to learn, work collaboratively to innovate and find new solutions, taking personal and professional responsibility for your actions and performance.

The ability to travel across a wide geographical area in a timely and flexible manner at various times of the day is essential.

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.

The post for the Folkestone & Hythe district, base to be confirmed

Shortlisting will take place Tuesday 21st July and interview offers made that day by email.  Applicants will need to be available for interview on Thursday 23rd July and use the portal to book an available interview slot.

Contact Details

For an informal chat you can contact Kelly King 03000 410612