An exciting opportunity has arisen in East Sussex for a highly motivated and committed Family Worker to build on a well-established commissioned service.   

About the Role:  

Kinship is the leading kinship care charity in England and Wales. We work with all kinship carers – the grandparents, siblings, aunts, uncles, and family friends who are caring for children when their parents can’t.  

We’re seeking an experienced Family Worker who is passionate about supporting kinship carers to get the right support at the right time. We are looking for someone who has the interpersonal and partnership skills to perform their role sensitively and creatively while also meeting reporting and impact requirements. The successful candidate will work collaboratively with East Sussex County Council and will share their ambition to support families to keep their children safe through support, advice and guidance.  

You’ll be delivering our Kinship Connected programme offering support to special guardians and other kinship carers, providing emotional and practical support to carers in their homes and in the community over a six-month intervention cycle. You’ll also connect them with other kinship carers through peer support groups, as well as supporting to unlock community assets.   

This is a role where you’ll need to have strong boundaries and personal resilience – which we’ll also support through development and reflective practice. 

Key responsibilities include:

• Practical and emotional support to kinship carers virtually or in-person in their home or community.

• Signposting or referring to relevant national and local services.

• Liaising with other professionals and organisations.

• Attending professional meetings when the carer needs extra support (e.g. CIN. CP, family group conference, school meetings).

• Making referrals to other Kinship services such as Advice, Someone Like Me, Peer-to-Peer.

Key Dates:

• Application Deadline:         8am on 27 May 2024

• First Interview:                    w/c 3 June 2024

• Second Interview:               TBC

Full job description can be found here.

How to apply:

We will ask you for your CV and to respond to the following six questions via the Applied platform. Please note that all answers will be viewed anonymously by reviewers and CVs will not be viewed until after this sift has happened. This is the first opportunity to demonstrate your experience and to stand out in the recruitment process. Reviewers will not see all your answers together and will be marking on the strength of the response to each question. You will have 250 words per answer.

Questions for application (along with CV):

1.a) Why you want to work for Kinship as a Project Worker in the Programmes Team;  b) How your skills and experience make you well suited for this role?

2. A big part of this role is face-to-face outreach and community engagement - how would you approach this?  Can you give an example of approaches you have used when delivering tailored support to families?

3. What are some of the challenges of delivering group-based support for kinship families? How would you mitigate those challenges to create a safe, inclusive space for kinship carers in East Sussex?

4. This is a busy and varied role, please explain how you manage casework and prioritise your workload to maintain boundaries in how you work with families in crisis.

5. Can you briefly describe a particularly challenging situation you faced in working within communities and how did you manage the situation? What was the outcome from your actions?

6. Kinship has developed a set of values which are to: Step up; Be bold; Be stronger together; Put people first. Please explain how you would demonstrate these values in this role.