Youth Engagement Officer
£32,076 - £34,834
The Children in Care Service is made up of 5 teams who are responsible for all looked after children who have a plan for permanency via long term foster care, including friends and family care, residential care, placed at home on subject to Care Orders.
As part of our daily work the service responds to young people who have, or who are at risk of, being exploited (criminally or sexually), being trafficked, are going missing from home or placement and/or entering the youth justice system. Young people can also disengage when there is instability in their life, this could be in placement, education, or relationships and at this stage it is crucial we support and build relationships to support each individual young person to support them to feel safe, secure and achieve the best outcomes for them.
All work undertaken with young people is alongside partner agencies including Police, Health, Education, Early Help and Communities to reduce and prevent risk linked to exploitation, criminality and gang crime.
The aim of the Youth engagement workers is to provide a flexible and responsive service to reduce risk and vulnerability to child exploitation and episodes of missing from home and care along with any instability in a child/young persons life. +
We are a large team that work collectively and collaboratively to find the best ways to support individuals and address community issues.
We are looking to appoint Youth Engagement Officers who can communicate effectively with young people with a balance of empathy and assertiveness. We are looking to appoint individuals who can support young people to develop their goals and ambitions. We need to appoint individuals who can achieve this by supporting young people to navigate the issues the young people present with positively with an understanding of their situation.
The Role
The role will be office based. You will work alongside team members and colleagues within the office, but spend much of your time working out in the community with young people and partners.
The role offers you the opportunity to work directly with young people as part of a multi-agency team. As you will be working with young people you need to be an excellent communicator, with experience of working with young people. You will need to be able to demonstrate your ability to effectively engage young people in your application.
You will work alongside young people through planned pieces of intervention to reduce risk of or vulnerability to forms of exploitation and instability. Intervention is tailored to the needs of the young person and their family/carers.
The work will be fast paced as the team respond to the changing needs of young people and their communities. You will be able to positively affect the lives of young people and communities, take part in reactive work as new issues arise and get involved in the planning of far-reaching work that will affect the wider Kirklees community.
Experience of working within multi-agency teams would be beneficial for this role as you will work closely with partner agencies to prevent young people being exploited or entering the youth justice system. You will need great team working skills in order to contribute to our collaborative planning and decision-making processes.
Recording and documentation of your work is a vital part of this role, you will need to clearly record and document the work done alongside the young people you support and your work with communities. Much of the work will need to be completed within statutory timescales and will include writing assessments.
The role will be dynamic as we respond to emerging needs, in addition to this we are an expanding service and for these reasons there may be development opportunities as you become involved in new projects to support our aims.
For a full list of the role requirements please see the attached Job Profile.
What can we offer?
- Generous annual leave entitlement
- Friendly and supportive team environment
- Ongoing training and career development
- Excellent pension scheme
- A range of family friendly policies
- We offer a wide range of well-being initiatives including a cycle to work scheme and discounted KAL membership
If you have any questions about the role please contact Rahila Habib (Service Manager) on 01484 221000 or at rahila.habib@Kirklees.gov.uk
10 October 2022, 12:00 PM
Important Information
This vacancy is closed to applications.