Job Title: Children & Families Worker

1. Main purpose of the role

To engage children, young people (CYP) and families in a range of support interventions, with a view to
safeguarding CYP and vulnerable adults, increasing familial resilience and preventing intergenerational
childhood trauma.
The post holder will work as an integral part of a multi-disciplinary team to:
 Identify families in conjunction with other agencies, who will benefit from a Think Family / Whole
family approach, negotiating participation and engagement with the programme of care;
 Manage a caseload of individuals affected by parental substance misuse;
 Ensure that appropriate safeguarding practice is followed at all times, working in partnership with
statutory agencies where appropriate;
 Provide assessment, psychosocial interventions, integrated care planning and after care support,
including transfer of care;
 Provide service user advocacy to support engagement from and access to partnership services;

 Work with service users to support positive, holistic outcomes in relation to their health and
wellbeing, enabling them to lead safe, happy, healthy and purposeful lives: reducing risk and
increasing resilience.

2. Reporting and working relationships

Reporting relationships:
Service / Project
The role will report directly to the Senior / Manager
Team Leader.
The role may supervise volunteers and
peer mentors. Team Leader

Children and Families

Worker
Admins, Volunteers,
Peer Mentors

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Working relationships:
This role is vital to the development and Service
continuity of the service and includes users
multi-agency working.
Central
Prescribing
Support Clinicians
Services

Children &
Families Worker

Volunteers
and Peer Families /
Mentors significant
others

Partner
agencies

3 Role-specific responsibilities
To work closely and proactively with the family unit to support positive and sustainable
3.1 outcomes. This may include whole family activities, parenting support programmes, harm
reduction and supporting referral into adult treatment services where appropriate.
To holistically support CYP affected by parental substance misuse, using a range of
3.2 interventions including: group work, 1:1 work, whole family interventions, safety planning and
safeguarding

3.3 To initiate, develop and deliver support groups

To share subject specific knowledge and skills across the team to support work force
3.4 development
To develop and deliver training to other professionals on the issues facing CYP and families in
3.5
respect to substance misuse.
Work closely with your service’s Safeguarding Lead, to ensure all issues and concerns are
3.6
escalated and dealt with quickly and effectively.
To provide advocacy, advice and support to family members where appropriate, to reduce risk
3.7 and increase resilience.

To support the development of strong relations with partner agencies, ensuring robust referral
3.8 protocols and care pathways for the effective identification, referral and support for those
requiring ‘hidden harm’ interventions from the service.

To support the development of resources, interventions and programmes to enhance the

3.9 delivery of ‘hidden harm’ interventions.

To attend planning meetings, reviews, child protection conferences and any other relevant
3.10 decision making forums for CYP and families in need of support from the service.

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 To be the assessing professional, as required, where a Common Assessment Framework (CAF),
3.11 CAF+ or equivalent assessment is needed.

To work collaboratively with key partners in developing multi-agency assessment and care plans
3.12 to meet the holistic needs of CYP and families.

To ensure that service users play an integral role in all aspects of service delivery, from entry to
3.13 aftercare support.

To ensure service user participation is promoted and that their experience is captured and used
3.14 to inform service delivery.

3.15 To be responsible for generating and supporting referrals from/to adult treatment services.

To provide psychosocial and educative workshops/ groups to families and carers, i.e. how
3.16 alcohol and drug use effects the family, coping mechanisms, dealing with crisis, exploring and
enhancing social support etc.

3.17 To deliver evidence-based Parenting Programmes where required.

3.18 Ensure the timely and accurate collection, recording and reporting of specified data.

To use and assess Gillick Competency (in line with Fraser Guidelines) for young People under
3.19 the age of 16.
Ensure that all aspects of confidentiality are adhered to and that consent to share
3.20 Information is a key element to building trusting therapeutic alliances.
To support the smooth running of the service, by contributing to tasks such as
3.21
Reception, duty cover, and ‘on call’ duties on an ad hoc basis.
It may occasionally be necessary for the post holder to carry out duties additional to this job
description, including duties usually contained within the posts above and below this role. Job
descriptions for these posts are available on request.
4. CGL’s commitment to you

CGL works within the following framework and requires all employees to do the same.

Equal Opportunities
CGL are committed to creating an inclusive environment, which celebrates difference and
allows our staff and service users to flourish. CGL are committed to promoting and ensuring anti
4.1 discriminatory practices through our organisational values, policies and procedures, which we
expect all staff to promote and adhere to. CGL expect all staff to challenge prejudice and
discrimination, to support staff with this we offer robust supervision alongside training and
development opportunities to continually improve equality, diversity and inclusion practises.

Vision
4.2 CGL enables people to make the positive changes necessary to lead independent and
purposeful lives and create safer, healthier communities.

4.3 Career Development and Progression

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 CGL is committed to providing its staff with opportunities for personal and professional
development. We provide an internal training and development programme and aim to keep all
our people up to date with new legislation and trends in health and social care work, with
specialist training provided as required. Where appropriate, staff undertake external training
courses in line with their development needs.

Safeguarding
CGL are committed to ensuring the safeguarding and wellbeing of children and adults at risk,
4.4 and all applicants will be required to demonstrate understanding of and commitment to best
safeguarding practice.

5 Your commitment to CGL

CGL Vision and Values

5.1 Promoting and understanding the values and vision if CGL. To understand what it means to you
in your respective role, to your team and to service delivery.

Children and Adults at Risk

5.2 Demonstrating an understanding of and commitment to best safeguarding practice. Making

awareness of documentation and referral pathways at your service a priority and taking
immediate and appropriate action as necessary.

Boundaries and Behaviours

5.3 Observing professional integrity in relationships with service users, peers, your team and other
relevant professionals.

Health & Safety

5.4 Being responsible for your health and safety and that of colleagues and service users.
Employees should co-operate with management and follow established systems of work.

Equality, Diversity and Inclusion

Being committed to helping to build an organisation that respects and values the diversity of all
staff, making our services accessible and inclusive, regardless of an individual’s protected
5.5 characteristic (age, disability, gender reassignment, marital or civil partnership status,
pregnancy or maternity, race, religion or belief, sex and sexual orientation) recovery status or
offending background.

Confidentiality
5.6 Treating all information acquired through the course of your employment as confidential and
complying with all the appropriate policies, systems and procedures.
5.7
Information Governance

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 Applying information governance processes to ensure all necessary safeguards are in place
regarding personal information – and its appropriate use – about our service users, workforce
and members of the public.

Continuous Professional and Personal Development

5.8 Working within a learning organisation, seeking learning opportunities either by attending
learning and training events either externally or internally to improve and broaden their
knowledge and skills and develop the personal qualities required in their professional lives.
The above is an outline of the post holder’s duties and responsibilities. It is not intended as an
exhaustive list and may change from time to time in order to meet the changing needs of CGL.
Any change will be made after a proper period of consultation.

This post is subject to a DBS check at an enhanced level and will be subject to registration with the
Independent Safeguarding Authority.
(Applies to all roles where regulated activity is undertaken.)

You will be required to work flexibly across operational sites as required and work flexibly within an agreed
number of hours to maintain the most appropriate level of service provision. As required this will include
some flexibility in working hours (i.e. earlier starts, evening and weekends).
CGL’s Competencies:
CGL’s Management Competency Framework articulates underlying characteristics that all managers are
required to demonstrate and can be used for identifying strengths, development opportunities and
performance management.
 Judgement
 Communication & Influence
 Open mindedness
 Emotional Intelligence
 Diversity
 Empowerment
 Courage
 Deliver results
These are supported through training, appraisal and supervision to ensure our Team Leaders are able to
perform to the best of their ability, support their teams, model the values of the organisation and develop
their own leadership skills.

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Person specification
Essential and desirable requirements (E & D) for the role and assessing and testing the necessary level of
competence required for this role.
Please note - applicants are asked to evidence their ability to meet each aspect of the person specification below,
e.g. by highlighting relevant key achievements and duties held within roles.

1 Education, knowledge and experience

1.1
Experience of working with families who have multiple risk factors e.g. Parental E
mental health, parental substance misuse, domestic violence, anti-social
behaviour, unemployed, poor / unsuitable housing, parental disability, parental
learning disability.

1.2 Level 3 qualification in a related health & social care discipline. E

1.3
Experience of delivering 1:1 and group work, including evidenced based E
interventions.

1.4
Experience of working with young people, families and children under the age of E
18 years who are affected by substance misuse.

1.5 Extensive experience of working in the substance misuse field. E

1.6
Experience of working in close partnership with key stakeholders including E
Children’s Services, schools, primary care.

1.7 Experience of contributing to / chairing multi-agency meetings. E

1.8
Experience of undertaking comprehensive assessments, care-planning, case E
management and reviews.

1.9 Experience of delivering training to professionals. E

1.10 Having achieved a level 3 Counselling qualification or equivalent D

2 Abilities and skills

2.1
Clear understanding of the Think Family agenda / Whole family approaches. E

2.2
The ability and willingness to be empathetic, inclusive and non-judgemental in E
your practice.

2.3
Practical knowledge of relevant legislation and application of safeguarding E
children & young people policies and procedures.

2.4 Sound working knowledge of Child Protection procedures E

2.5
Ability to demonstrate leadership within a multi-agency team to ensure best
possible outcomes for service users
E

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2.6
Commitment to continued professional development including participation in
internal and external training programmes. E

2.7 Flexibility to work some evenings and weekends if requested. E

2.8 Ability to manage challenging behaviour in a calm and professional manner. E

2.9
To deliver structured group work to carers affected by someone’s substance
misuse. D

2.10 Access to a car and full driving license. D

3 Working within CGL’s framework of commitments to employees

3 We expect staff to work demonstrate the skills and competencies as outlined within E
CGL’s framework of commitment as outlined above (section 5 of the JD, your
commitment to CGL)

Authors

Version number Date Initials Initials Year

1.1

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