Family Support Co-ordinator

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Job Title: Family Support Co-ordinator

Starting Salary: £31,537 progressing to £34,434 per annum (pro rata for part time)

Hours: 37.0

Location: Watford

Contract Type: Permanent

Directorate: Childrens Services

Do you enjoy working in a fast-paced environment, offering support, guidance, and training to professionals? The Supporting Families Practice Team sits within Supporting Families in Children’s Services and incorporates both Family and Practitioner Support across Hertfordshire. The team also encompasses Families First Panels where weekly multi‑agency support panels are held to discuss families who need a coordinated approach to early help support, and agree which agencies are best placed to co‑ordinate the early help support plan.

When it is apparent that more information is required or where it is deemed that a slightly higher level of support is required to coordinate support for families, a Family Support Coordinator will be allocated to lead on this.

As a Family Support Co‑ordinator, you will hold a case load of families and lead on coordinating support for these families by undertaking a Families First Assessment (FFA). You will need to work at pace to meet families in their homes, to understand their strengths and identify unmet needs for which the family require help and support to meet. You will be required to build rapport with families quickly, working with them in their own homes and have a good knowledge of local services.

You will listen to the wishes and feelings of children and young people and liaise with early years settings, schools and other key services and agencies already involved with the family, as well as identify and engage services that are required, but not yet working with a family. The Family Support Coordinator will work closely with the Families First Coordinator within the team to identify and engage external agencies to take over the lead role for the FFA, or progress with support where needed until the case closes.

The Family Support Coordinator will be managed by the Senior Families First Coordinator and will work in close collaboration with their Senior, ensuring that Early Help support is identified and provided to families in a clear effective way to evidence impact and ensure positive outcomes for families across Hertfordshire.

This is fast‑paced environment requiring you to be organised and able to move quickly between different priorities for different families while maintaining up to date records. The Family Support Coordinator will need to be confident in recognising and responding to risk, referring to Hertfordshire’s Continuum of Need to support your decision‑making, and continuously focus on improving outcomes for families.

Training and development opportunities are plentiful, to support your direct work with families; potentially including facilitating group‑based interventions.

This role will be covering the districts of Watford/Three Rivers and Hertsmere.

• A sound knowledge and understanding of Families First Assessments and Early Help support in Hertfordshire.
• You will need to be comfortable working with parents/carers, children and young people from diverse backgrounds and have a sound knowledge of safeguarding responsibilities and child development.
• Experience of interacting and working with families, children and young people and finding out what really matters to them.
• You will be outcome focused with excellent attention to detail using their experience in report writing to help identify needs and strengths which in turn will help to produce action plans from the supplied assessments.
• Experience in effective stakeholder engagement across a variety of services and agencies.
• Experience of managing professional conflict and difficult conversations using your negotiation skills for effective partnership working and the ability to problem solve.
• Self‑motivated with the ability to manage conflicting priorities understanding the importance of the role’s others play in achieving a…