Early Help Maternity Cover

JOB DESCRIPTION

Early Help Practitioner

Maternity Cover

Grade                         Grade 7

Responsible to:         Assistant Headteacher

Purpose of the Job

Ø  To represent the needs of Holy Trinity children, young people and families through the Early Help process.

Ø  To act as Holy Trinity’s main point of contact for lead professionals and agencies; providing advice, guidance and support on the early help process to ensure progress in school.

Ø  To take the lead on ensuring Early Help assessment at Holy Trinity and partner agencies meets the identified needs of children, young people and their families and to co-ordinate an early help response through partnership with relevant organisations.

Ø  To develop and contribute to action plans for students and families in need of early help or with complex needs though liaison with appropriate professionals in school.

Key Tasks to Achieve Outcomes

Ø  To organise and co-ordinate assessment, signposting and referral procedures to support implementation of the Early Help Assessment Framework and associated processes at a local level.

Ø  To gather information in order to assess the needs of children and family members, completing family assessments, direct work with children and young people and safeguarding plans in partnership with the family and other professionals.

Ø  To meet with parents and/or their children at their home, school or other setting

Ø  Ensure that parents, children and young people’s views are captured and included in plans.

Ø  To work in partnership with other services regarding the support for families (e.g. Schools, Social Services, Health Visiting, CAMHS etc

Ø  To gain the voice of the child, working with the family, to establish and engage them in what is working well in their life, by recognising their strengths, and skills.

Ø  To work holistically with families, employing assertive and persistent strategies and interventions with resistant families who are reluctant to make changes, promoting resilience and independence through understanding an individual or family’s readiness and capacity to change.

Ø  To work within the wider safeguarding and pastoral team and provide support to other colleagues.

Ø  To organise, co-ordinate and chair TAF meetings so they take place with the right audience at the right time and with the right information.

Ø  To co-ordinate multi-agency meetings and communications with parents/carers, school staff and external agencies.

Ø  Use IT systems to record and maintain data and information in a timely way for all agencies to monitor progress towards outcomes.

Ø  To make sure assessments and plans for families are leading to clear outcomes and that those outcomes are captured at review and closure of a case.

Ø  To maintain the effective monitoring and evaluation of the Early Help Assessment Framework and produce statistical information relating to trends and predictors of need.

Ø  To undertake appropriate training.

Ø  To ensure you keep up to date regarding local provision so that families have clear exit support plans that link them in with appropriate external agencies or provision.

Ø  Ensure that assessments and plans are holistic and look to identify strengths and needs across a family and cover a wide range of areas including (but not exhaustive) health, risky behaviour, school attendance/behaviour/achievement, troubled families’ criteria and parenting needs.

Ø  Closely monitor cases where there is poor school attendance to ensure parents are aware of their legal responsibilities to have their children in full time education. Work alongside the Attendance and Pastoral teams to coordinate a supportive approach to improved attendance.

Ø  Ensure case notes are concise, accurate, outcome focused and reflect the current status of a case.

Ø  Compile reports/case studies for meetings, audits or inspections.

Safeguarding

Ø  Ensure that practice is carried out in accordance with the requirements of all relevant legislation and statutory guidance and the policies and procedures.

Ø  To follow safeguarding procedures, in consultation with the Designated Safeguarding Lead, liaising with other agencies as appropriate.

Ø  Have a thorough understanding of safeguarding issues and to provide evidence of protective and risk factors in order to identify thresholds of need.

Ø  To liaise with the Holy Trinity Safeguarding Team to ensure that social workers are informed regarding cases that have emerging safeguarding issues and where pieces of joint work have been identified.